Join Duncan McClellan Gallery and glass artists Hiroshi Yamano and Naoko Takenouchi for a special Glass Weekend, and for the opening of the glass exhibit “Earth, Sea and Air ”. This exhibit will open Saturday, March 14, at 5:30-9:30pm, and includes a free glassblowing demonstration with Yamano, Takenouchi, and the St. Petersburg Hot Glass Workshop team. Refreshments will be available.
On Sunday, March 15 at noon, join Yamano and Takenouchi for their noon lecture at the Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg, FL, in conjunction with the Museum’s “Art in Bloom” program.Floral designers will create arrangements as companion pieces to the artists’ glass works, and the design concepts and inspiration for these pieces will be discussed during the joint presentations. There will be opportunity for the public to participate in a Q & A session involving Yamano and Takenouchi.
(Contact the Museum of Fine Arts at 727-896-2667 for further information.)
Born in 1956 in Fukuoka, Japan, Hiroshi Yamano has been working with glass for over 25 years. He has studied at prestigious schools throughout the US and Japan, such as California College of Arts and Crafts, Tokyo Glass Art Institute, and Rochester Institute of Technology where he received his Masters in Fine Arts.
Yamano began working with glass in 1975 having seen an exhibition of Scandinavian glass in Kyoto. After traveling to Europe, he returned to Japan to complete his studies. He spent the next two years studying glass. At California College of Arts and Crafts, under Marvin Lipofsky, he learned the creative aspects of glass, and at the Tokyo Glass Art Institute he learned the technical aspects of glass.
Yamano’s list of exhibitions is as impressive as it is international. Venues include the United States, Japan, Switzerland, Germany and Australia. He has received numerous awards, most notably in 1991, The Rakow Commission, an annual award presented to a leading glass artist, from The Corning Museum of Glass. The resulting piece was presented to the Corning Museum of Glass. His work appears in many collections, both public and private, including The Corning Museum of Glass in New York, the Wheaton Glass Museum in New Jersey and the Chrysler Museum in Virginia.
Hiroshi Yamano’s new “Scene of Japan” art glass series is an extension of the artist’s “From East to West” series: a metaphorical exploration of Eastern and Western cultures
and their influences on his life.
Fluid in form, these works depict a meditative and solitary moment in Nature, surrounded by a Universe in flux. Yamano’s “Scene of Japan” presents delicate studies of the natural world, inviting us to share a contemplative moment.
Naoko Takenouchi completed a four-year degree course in design and glassblowing at Tama Art University in Tokyo, while taking time to attend the New York Experimental Glass Workshop. Her work experience continued at the Swedish Center Foundation and in the New-Small & Sterling Glass Studio in Vancouver. She has attended the Pilchuck Glass School as a scholarship student in ’93 and ’98. Takenouchi has exhibited her work world wide, and her work was included in New Glass Review 16, Contemporary Glass: Color, Light & Form from Guild Publishing, 500 Glass Objects from Lark Books and many other national and international publications. She has received many awards in Canada including the Canada Council “mid-career” grant. In 2002, Takenouchi was invited to be one of the jury members for the Saidy Bronfman Award in Ottawa. Currently, she has been commissioned to make Governor General’s Performing Art’s Awards since 2003.
“Recently, I have been thinking about my desire to live closer to nature and to be in touch with both my senses and my inner voice. The migration of wild life has given me a certain inspiration. My current series, “Migratory Birds” is exploration of their mysterious and astonishing journey and also the power that we have lost contact with in this modern society.”
