Seeing into It: Messages in Glass

The Craft in America Center will celebrate the visionary work of rebel glass artists Paul Marioni and Susan Stinsmuehlen-Amend with an exhibition. Both artists, distinguished for their unconventional approach to technique, material and form, have been essential to the development of glass as teachers and creators. Pictorialism, symbolism and message have defined their work and set it apart. The exhibition will feature a selective retrospective of two dozen of the artists’ most meaningful works spanning the 1970s to the present.

Over the course of their thirty-five year friendship, Marioni and Stinsmuehlen-Amend have continually inspired each other, having crossed paths professionally at pivotal moments. Marioni, an outspoken leader in the studio glass movement who started teaching at Pilchuck Glass School in its first years, ignited Stinsmuehlen-Amend’s experimentation with the communicative potential of glass when they initially connected at a gathering of makers in the late 1970s. Both were drawn to expressive work that challenged aesthetic trends and asserted personal identity.

Among the various themes that emerge in their work, consciousness and how the mind operates are launching points for each artist. Mortality, corporality and sensuality appear throughout. Marioni often encases hallucinatory visions and supernatural creatures in blown vessels and flat panels that are spiked with Surrealist wit. Stinsmuehlen-Amend recurrently contemplates the mindlessness of daily existence and the inner thoughts that manifest themselves in the visual form of scribbles and doodles, which she recreates in glass. Layers of thoughts are deconstructed and sandwiched together in her flat, multi-dimensional glass paintings. For each, glass is the ideal material for confronting the darkness and lightness of being.

These two rule-breakers have fearlessly taken the road less traveled and consistently pushed glass into new territories of expression. They are acclaimed for innovatively using figurative and narrative imagery that asserts the profound potential of glass as a medium. Their commitment to exploring the way that light, color and line converge in glass to transmit messages is unsurpassed. In a rare pairing, the exhibition will honor their voices and contributions.


Craft in America is pleased to announce the publication of a companion catalog. To view it online, visit our Publications page.
To purchase this catalog, visit our Shop page.

  • Seeing Into It Susan Stinsmuehlen-Amend Paul Marioni
  • Susan Stinsmuehlen-Amend, Xtincxtion, 1980-1981
  • Susan Stinsmuehlen-Amend, Xtincxtion, 1980-1981
  • Paul Marioni, Gossip, 2011
  • Susan Stinsmuehlen-Amend, Chernobyl Cocktail, 1985
  • Susan Stinsmuehlen-Amend, Chernobyl Cocktail, 1985
  • Susan Stinsmuehlen-Amend, Tower of Multiple Nonfunctions, 1985
  • Susan Stinsmuehlen-Amend, Tower of Multiple Nonfunctions, 1985
  • Paul Marioni, Lickin', 2005
  • Paul Marioni, The Queen, 1993
  • Paul Marioni, The Queen, 1993
  • Paul Marion, Frida, 1992
  • (Top left) Paul Marioni, X Oohaha, 1980. (Bottom left) Paul Marioni, The Something or Other Society, 2005. (Far right) Susan Stinsmuehlen-Amend, Manview II, 2013
  • Susan Stinsmuehlen-Amend, Manview II, 2013
  • Paul Marioni, X Oohaha, 1980
  • Paul Marioni, The Something or Other Society, 2005
  • Paul Marioni, Looking Back, 2001
  • Paul Marioni, Yew, 2003
  • Paul Marioni, Yew, 2003
  • Susan Stinsmuehlen-Amend, Grocery Nude To-Do (Calendar Girl), 2013
  • Susan Stinsmuehlen-Amend, Fermat's Last Theorem, 1998
  • Paul Marioni, The Visitor, 1984
  • Paul Marion, The Fallen Hero, 1978
  • Paul Marion, The Fallen Hero, 1978
  • Susan Stinsmuehlen-Amend, T.G.I.F./April, Calendar Notations, 2005
  • Susan Stinsmuehlen-Amend, T.G.I.F./April, Calendar Notations, 2005
  • Susan Stinsmuehlen-Amend, Weight, 1993
  • Susan Stinsmuehlen-Amend, Weight, 1993
  • (Top left) Paul Marioni, Mean Mountain, 2012. (Bottom left) Susan Stinsmuehlen-Amend, Buoy, 1993. (Far right) Susan Stinsmuehlen-Amend, Common Vessels/ Spray Bottle, 2006
  • Paul Marioni, Mean Mountain, 2012
  • Susan Stinsmuehlen-Amend, Buoy, 1993
  • Susan Stinsmuehlen-Amend, Common Vessels/ Spray Bottle, 2006
  • Susan Stinsmuehlen-Amend, Common Vessels/ Spray Bottle, 2006
  • Paul Marioni, Ghost, 2001
  • Susan Stinsmuehlen-Amend, Hexaplex, 1978-1979
  • Paul Marioni, Mean Mountain, 2012
  • Paul Marioni, Spirits Lifting, 2008
  • Paul Marioni, Spirits Lifting, 2008
  • Seeing Into It Susan Stinsmuehlen-Amend Paul Marioni
  • Susan Stinsmuehlen-Amend, Happy Face, 2001
  • Susan Stinsmuehlen-Amend, Garden of Eden/ Paradise I, 2004
  • Susan Stinsmuehlen-Amend, Who's the Lead, Rex, 1989
  • Susan Stinsmuehlen-Amend, Who's the Lead, Rex, 1989
  • Paul Marioni, Black Jaguar, 1987
  • Susan Stinsmuehlen-Amend, A Man's Chair, 2003
  • Paul Marioni, The Glassblowers, 1993
  • Paul Marioni, The Glassblowers, 1993
  • Susan Stinsmuehlen-Amend, Jalapeño Girl, 1986-1987
  • Paul Marioni, Mad Man, 2012
 

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