Home  GessoHead - Blog Tim Tate, Michael Janis and Allegra Narquardt at Maurine Littleton
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Tim Tate, Michael Janis and Allegra Narquardt at Maurine Littleton |
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Oct 1, 2008
Maurine Littleton in Georgetown is showing the best of DC glass art this month with the work of Time Tate, Michael Janis and Allegra Marquardt. These three work out of the Washington Glass School which is strategically located across the driveway from my studio in Mt. Ranier and I have known Tim and Michael forever. I have watched with the greatest admiration as they built a vibrant and exciting center of glass art in our area from scratch, developed new techniques, moved glass from the decorative and functional to another level, and inspired dozens of students.
 Michael Janis  Michael pretty much invented a style of dense image-making which involves drawing with tiny shards of black glass (frit) which are fused into clear glass and then layered and fused with more sheets of glass that may contain images, text, photos or almost anything. The effect of depth and ambiguity he is able to achieve is remarkable, as is the sophistication of his most recent work.
 Tim continues to develop his narrative and conceptual themes, working with video screens captured inside jars that tell stories of sweet and heartbreaking innocence (the dyptich of a young girl pretending to fly like a bird) and optimistic ambition (the series around an aspiring writer). It seems to me that his themes have broadened from the intensely personal imagery that told of his coming to terms with being gay and HIV-positive to more universal stories of growth, ambition and, sometimes, disappointment.
 Allegra Marquardt comes from the world of print-making, which she teaches at the Maryland Institute College of Art and her glass work is truly one-of-a-kind. She uses fairy tales, fables and children’s rhymes, often translating them quite literally into crystalline, graphic glass pieces. The pieces are made more visually compelling by the play of underlayers of soft color against the sharp-cut dark shapes on top.
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