West NY News

The Series was founded in 2021 by Adeye Jean-Baptist, a second-year BFA student at the time from Scarsdale, NY. Jean-Baptist’s proposal was for the University to host glass artists during Black History Month who hailed from the African diaspora. 

Her proposal garnered immediate support from Alfred University’s SOAD and its Sculpture Dimensional Studies Division, in addition to support from the University’s Student Senate, the Institute for Cultural Unity, and Olympic Color, a glassblowing supply company in Seattle, WA.

The series features classes and lectures conducted by the visiting artists. Two artists have agreed to participate in the Series this year, with a third to be announced at a later date. The visiting artists who already have committed are:

Percy Echols, a Pittsburgh-based artist, alchemist, and educator who pioneers the development of neon and plasma light art at the Pittsburgh Glass Center and is the creator and host of the Podcast Taming Lightning. Echols began working in glass in 2011 when he took his first glassblowing class at Illinois State University. He developed an interest in plasma in 2014 at the Pilchuck Glass School in Stanwood, WA.

Echols will deliver a public lecture Feb. 8 at 7 pm in Room 106 of Binns-Merrill Hall. He also will host a public demonstration Feb. 10 from 9 to 11am in the BMH Glass Studio.

Learn more about his work here.

Corey Pemberton currently divides his time between his painting studio and a production glassblowing team in Los Angeles. He received his BFA from Virginia Commonwealth University and has completed residencies at The Pittsburgh Glass Center and the Bruket glass studio, in Bodø, Norway. In addition, he was awarded a fellowship at the Penland School of Crafts, in North Carolina.

He will host a public demonstration Feb. 16 from 1:20 to 4pm in the BMH Glass Studio and deliver a lecture at 4:30 pm in Room 106 of BMH

Learn more about Pemberton here.

Original source can be found here.