Eyes for Glass – the Price Collection
After attending the Time Warp exhibit in Vancouver, I flew down to Seattle to attend the Bellevue Art Museum’s Gala Art Auction where I was a guest at John & Joyce Price’s table. Just before the Gala began, along with fellow artist Joe David, we got the chance to view the Price’s exhibit called “Eyes for Glass” which opened on March 18th, on the 3rd floor of the Museum. Wow, what a trip! It looked like a real show! – what’s the big deal, this is an exhibit, right? Well, I’ve visited with John and Joyce at their home; it is like an overly-crowded museum with carvings, paintings and sculptures everywhere, even on the bathroom sink(!), so seeing select glass sculptures on their own individual pedestals with their own private spot lights set apart from the next, was a real treat.
Along with glass works by Preston Singletary, Lino Tagliapietra and Dale Chihuly (to name a few), the Price Collection exhibit included other artists working in other mediums including carver Joe David, and myself. In 2008, the Price Collection included “Copper Man”, a 6-piece Chilkat and Ravenstail ensemble. Above is a photo of myself with Copper Man at the Eyes for Glass exhibit.
In the exhibit, I was happy to see one of my favorite pieces in the Price Collection: the boy carver by Joe David. The photograph below is the wooden boy sitting on a bench with his tools of the trade and mask, flanked by Joyce, John, Sarah (friend of Joe’s), and Joe…
Joe and I are collaborating on the “girl weaver” to match the “boy carver.” We hope to complete the piece by January 2011.
Are you wondering who are John and Joyce Price? Here is an excerpt from the Eyes for Glass exhibit program guide:
“For John and Joyce Price collecting art is a passion, a unique, personal way of entering into a rich and meaningful life experience as well as a way of being receptive and responsible to life. John’s passion for collecting began when, as a nine-year-old child he saw the 1952 film Moulin rouge, featuring the life of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. As a result he decided when an adult he would collect the art of Lautrec. While continuing to acquire Lautrec’s art and memorabilia, John expanded his interests in the 1960s to other genres of art from the Pacific Northwest.
By the late 1970’s John learned of the existence of a unique educational institution known as Pilchuck Glass School founded in 1971 by Dale Chihuly, Anne Gould-Hauberg and John Hauberg located in Western Washington. As a result of Pilchuck’s international draw, many artists working in glass located their studios and homes to Washington thereby creating a critical mass of practitioners. The Prices were impressed by the ever-increasing innovations and beauty of studio glass art. By the early 1980s, they were avidly collecting glass art. Eyes for Glass demonstrates the cross-pollination of relationships between artists who work with glass and the other areas of art represented in their collection.
More than art, it is the individual artists or teams who make the art, and the galleries, museums and organizations supporting art, that have become so important to the Prices. collecting has allowed them to establish a dialogue with artits, but also to grow lifelong friendships. Each piece is a reminder of an intimacy established over time through giving and receiving. At a time when the world is fragmented and chaotic, the Prices have sought works of art that provide points of equilibrium for our spirit thus unifying an outer world of experience with an inner world of intuition. Art from the collection has been included in exhibitions at over one hundred museums and/or events throughout the world, including four solo exhibitions.
John Price has served on several boards and worked with many arts organizations not limited to, but including Pilchuck Glass School, Bellevue Arts Museum, Burke Museum Association, PONCHO, Inuit Art Foundation and West Baffin Eskimo Cooperative.”
For more information on “Eyes for Glass – the Price Collection”, visit the Bellevue Museum of Glass website at: www.bellevuearts.org