Pilchuck Glass School Announces Selection of 2003 Emerging Artists in Residence

Pilchuck Glass School is pleased to announce the selection of six artists to participate in its 2003 Emerging Artist-in-Residence (EAiR) Program. They are Evan Blackwell, Megumi Esaki, Robert Flottemesch, Niki Harley, Hye-Wook Huh, and Elisabeth Nickles. Selected from among 38 highly competitive and talented applicants, they will live and work at Pilchuck’s campus for eight weeks beginning September 22, 2003.

Evan Blackwell currently lives and works in Seattle, Washington, after receiving a B.F.A. from Alfred University in New York. Blackwell intends to use this residency to create “installations with glass forms that explore concepts about weight, mass, space and time” by assembling cast or slumped glass parts to create larger architectural and vessel forms.

Megumi Esaki first came to Pilchuck as a student in Deborah Czeresko’s hot sculpting course in 2000. An M.F.A. graduate of Japan’s Aichi University, she intends to create unique living spaces focusing on connected or constructed figures of glass. Esaki’s current work emphasizes big basins displayed with water to “express the movement of wind and air, and light and shadow.”

Bard College graduate Robert Flottemesch will return to Pilchuck this fall as an EAiR after participating in the 2002 summer program as a student in Melanie Rowe and Leslie Rowe-Israelson’s casting class. Flottemesch will use his residency to investigate the seamless integration of steel and copper into glass.

Australian Niki Harley visited Pilchuck’s campus briefly in 2002 and will return this fall as an EAiR. A recent Master of Fine Arts graduate of Monash University, Harley will use this residency to work in Pilchuck’s kiln studio to “transform ancient technologies of rope and glass-making into contemporary cultural expression.”

Frequent Pilchuck student (2000, 2002, 2003) and Southern Illinois University M.F.A. graduate Hye-Wook Huh will experiment with larger pieces that incorporate natural elements (grass, turf, and water) in glass sculptures to give them vitality.

Philadelphia-based artist Elizabeth Nickles will work on an installation for a 2003-2004 show at Philadelphia’s Schmidt-Dean Gallery. An M.F.A. graduate of Boston’s School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Nickles will continue to develop cast glass and multimedia sculptural installations examining landscape as external and internal metaphor.

Founded in 1990, Pilchuck’s fall Emerging Artist-in-Residence Program offers a group of six artists in the early stages of their careers financial support, a period of time, and a creative environment in which to develop bodies of work focusing on glass. Bridging the academic world and the professional world, the residency differs from the summer educational program in that it does not include instruction or access to the hot shop. EAiRs have full access to Pilchuck’s fusing, slumping and pâte de verre kilns, flameworking torches, and coldworking equipment along with studio space, living accommodations, technical assistance, a $1,000 stipend, and a significant period of time in which to take risks, pursue special projects, or finish a body of work.

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