CORAL GABLES, Fla. - Artist William Carlson dips the large steel ladle into the blazing furnace and fills it with liquid glass. With sweat pouring down his face, he quickly moves to a graphite mould he has made and pours in the seething yellow-coloured liquid.
He is making glass wall tiles with an imprint of fibre knots in them that he will remove with tweezers. This will leave a fossil of the knot. The tiles will then be hung together in a grid format. Carlson says he is trying to start a discourse about language with the way he lays out the fibre.
Glass art is attracting more admirers and collectors today and gaining more attention as a fine art, as artists explore more with the medium. Meanwhile, prices for pieces are on the rise.
"It's a maturation of the field. More and more we are seeing people interested," said Michael Heller, vice president of the Heller Gallery in New York, where glass art is sold. "More and more collectors have also started to realize the value of work that has integrity."
The artistic content of glass art has developed over the last decade or so, artists say.
"It's kind of coming of age where craft is no longer the title of the work. Craft is the means to an end. . . . It really is the strength of the concept and power of the image," says Carlson, who also teaches at the University of Miami in Coral Gables.
Fran Kaufman, director of the contemporary art fair palmbeach3, says the reason glass art is on the rise is because many collectors aren't purchasing just one type of art anymore but varying the kinds of art they collect. Prices are also getting higher, which is enticing people to buy it.
"Prices getting higher, that is appealing to collectors. People are looking beyond the more traditional glass pieces. . . . Collections are not so specific anymore," Kaufman says. "I think the experimentation has grown more."
Mark Lyman, director of the two annual shows called SOFA, which take place in New York and Chicago, says that 10 to 15 years ago an expensive glass piece would cost between $50,000 to $100,000. Now, such works can reach anywhere from $500,000 to $1 million.
"It's a very active market for them," Lyman says of the glass pieces. "It's really come along. . . . We're seeing a lot of growth and strength."
In an effort to expand public awareness, collectors Sheldon and Myrna Palley of Miami donated about 100 pieces that they have been amassing since the 1970s to the University of Miami's Lowe Art Museum. The exhibit opened last month.
They say they have about 200 more works at home. The collection at the museum includes a piece by William Morris that looks like a prehistoric artifact with cave paintings on it. Next to it, attached to a metal stand, is a glass shaped to resemble a horn. It was created in 1992. Christina Bothwell's glass yellow baby with ceramic head and extremities also sits on one of the shelves.
Myrna Palley says they scour fairs and work with well-known glass art dealers to decide what they will buy.
"When you go to a cafeteria and there's all this food, how do you know what to pick?" Myrna Palley says of her experience buying glass art. "It just calls me."
Sheldon Palley says the feeling of power in Tom Patti's small glass objects really pull him to them.
