“CCA students of the discipline of glass are custodians of the best traditions of the past. They are also expected to understand and be committed to the pursuit of new paradigms of contemporary art practice. Our faculty, themselves professional artists, believe that students who use glass as their primary material should be rigorous thinkers and adventurous creators with the ability and dexterity to realize their own ideas.” – CCA Web Site, 2007

The San Francisco Museum of Craft+Design is proud to present this exhibition in honor of the 100^th anniversary of the founding of California College of the Arts and the 40^th anniversary of the CCA Glass Program.  The thirty-seven alumni and faculty represented in this exhibition are adventurous creators, who are professional artists, teachers and entrepreneurs.  Their work spans the life of the program and articulates the rich legacy of the CCA Glass Program.  Established in 1967 by Marvin Lipofsky, the Glass Program conferred its first degree to Ruth Tamura in 1969.  Today, fifty CCA students are enrolled in the Glass Program and continue to work rigorously and enthusiastically under the direction of Clifford Rainey and a faculty of five instructors.  

Marvin Lipofsky earned his MFA in 1964 at the University of Wisconsin, where he studied with Harvey Littleton, a professor of ceramics who taught his first class in the techniques of glass in the Ceramics Department.  Littleton, along with Dominick Labino, a glass chemist, launched the American Studio Glass Movement with two historic glassblowing workshops in 1962 at the Toledo Museum of Art.  Their creativity and technology made history by opening the possibility for artists to blow glass in independent studios outside the factory setting.  Moreover, it created the opportunity to teach glass arts in a college environment.  Lipofsky and his classmates went on to initiate glass programs in colleges and art schools around the country.  

From the beginning, Marvin Lipofsky encouraged CCA students to explore the conceptual possibilities of glass.  He stressed the importance of form and volume over the dazzling materiality and surface beauty of glass.  The artistic legacy of the CCA Glass Program is its emphasis on glass as a sculptural medium.  Transcending the functional and decorative history of glass, CCA faculty and alumni have expanded the boundaries of sculpture by exploiting new practices in the ancient medium of glass.  By the time Lipofsky left CCA in 1987, he had also expanded the number of artists working in glass by launching hundreds of students into a field that hadn’t even existed twenty years earlier.  Mark McDonnell, who studied with Lipofsky, took over as chair of the Glass Program in 1987 and served until 1991.  Creating large-scale works in his own practice, McDonnell continued to teach with a strong emphasis on conceptual and sculptural works in glass.  Clifford Rainey assumed leadership of the Glass Program in 1991, with a background and commitment to fine arts training, which continues to be the strength of the current faculty including, Elin Christopherson (BFA, CCAC 1989), Duncan House (BFA, CCAC 1996), and Corey Jones (BFA, CCA 2000), and Pamina Traylor.  

Today, CCA students majoring in glass continue to focus on contemporary fine art practices.  They are required to study drawing, the history and theory of glass, sculpture, combined media, glass coldworking skills, and hot glass techniques.  The CCA legacy in studio glass arts continues, as graduates use their skills to become exhibiting artists, proprietors of their own glass studios, and teachers of glass arts across the country.

Carolyn Kastner, Curator and CCA Adjunct Professor of Visual Studies

Photos courtesy of Adam Willis.

PHOTO GALLERY