Glass in the Garden is the Glass Art Guild of Utah’s annual show in Red Butte Garden’s Arboretum

A visitor from another state coming to Utah at the turn of the millennium could not have missed the remarkable vitality of the arts throughout the region and across the range of media. Here, seemingly everyone has at least a little bit of musical skill and practice, with experience somewhere between singing in church and performing at Abravanel Hall. Handicrafts like quilting and wood carving are qualifications for citizenship. And ample opportunity to paint and sculpt is always within reach.

But if that skier or backpacker happened to be from Seattle, admittedly the center of the international glass art scene, they might have puzzled over the absence of glass from the local gallery scene. Of course, artists in Utah have their own approaches, and it wasn’t long before the stunning backdrop of the Red Butte Gardens would be brought into play in support of glass. There’s nothing like the sunlight over the Wasatch, through the blue sky and multicolored foliage, to bring to life works that thrive on transparency and reflections the way only glass can, and the spacious headquarters of the Gardens, with their tall, wrap-around windows, make their own contribution. Not only have the members of the Glass Art Guild of Utah absorbed the lessons of a century of Studio Glass, but they’ve added many local elements to the mix, making for a unique experience that will be available until December 21, with new pieces being added as other treasures find new homes.

The sheer quantity of high-quality work makes it impossible to give more than a glimpse here, and the range of approaches exceeds even that. Yet surely our primary subject is the Land, and a couple of landscapes will show how much glass can add to the way we recollect it. Barbara Wesley’s “Tranquility Lake,” like all glass objects, really needs to be seen in person to appreciate not only the vibrancy of the colors, but their depth in what is, after all, a three-dimensional medium. A hint of this can be seen in the water here. Even greater depth is present in Barbara Busche’s “Aspen Grove,” where the perspective on trees near and far is bolstered by their actually being closer to the surface in front and those in the distance being deeper within the glass.

Barbara Busche, “Aspen Grove”

Not all glass paintings are representational. Tom Stout laminated narrow strips of color together with leaves of clear glass that, when melted together in the kiln, produced a vividly colorful abstract sculpture that exists entirely inside the glass, a visual effect with an impact available only in a glass object. It’s just possible, with the single eye of the camera taking the place of two living eyes, to get a mere hint of this dynamic object in a photograph. In “Golden,” on the other hand, Suzanne Larson used opaque glass with a metallic finish atop white opalescent, a trademark of Louis Comfort Tiffany’s, to produce another kind of third dimension in a contemporary style that Tiffany could never have achieved.

It would be wrong to create the impression that all the glass here is essentially painting.  Thanks to the unique ways glass can be worked, bowls and vases often display both surface details and the sculptural shapes they are applied to, into which they penetrate  instead of just lying on the surface. Then there’s a wealth of jewels for personal adornment, the sun catchers, and even some surprising functional objects, such as platters, trays and even lazy susans.

In addition, members of the Guild are present most Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays to answer questions or field ecstatic praise. In this regard, the Garden staff includes some remarkably well informed docents: Andrea, for example, has attended numerous presentations at which technique were not only discussed, but demonstrated. Even children are invited to try their hands at it, which is particularly apt in that most fused glass work is done cold, then heated safely in a kiln. For the bold and curious, ask to see the flame worked glass, done entirely in a gas jet. Magic.

In addition to gaining access to such technical knowledge and experience, those who want to contribute to education in this most arcane and yet modern art should know that they can contribute by purchasing certain works. An observant viewer may have noticed that on the “Aspen Grove” there’s a sticker that reads “Scholarship Donor.” These stickers, seen in various places throughout Glass in the Garden, indicate that a portion of the proceeds will go to fund scholarships for artisans and artists eager to learn more. The scholarships are the brainchild of Kerry Transtrum, one of the guild’s founding members, who found enthusiastic support when he surveyed the guild’s membership about the idea—they’ve already raised $12,000. Patrons to Red Butte Garden can also opt for a direct donation, although it’s not easy to imagine the donor who couldn’t use a spot of luminous beauty or the evidence of mind and body collaborating somewhere in their life.

Glass in the Garden, Red Butte Garden, Salt Lake City, through Dec. 21

Learn more about the Glass Art Guild’s scholarship program.

Geoff Wichert

Geoff Wichert objects to the term critic. He would rather be thought of as a advocate on behalf of those he writes about.