Professional Experience

• Awarded year long Fine Foundation Fellowship to an intensive region wide study program in which 60 professional leaders engaged in group discussion, met with government and community leaders, visited state legislators, and specific facilities throughout the commonwealth from arts organizations and schools to community development corporations, business and non-profits.

• Played a major role in raising over $300,000. for the Year of Glass
• Instrumental in creating two key funded projects, Japanese Glass Exhibition curated by Harumi Yukatake at the Pittsburgh Glass Center and Therman Statom Residency with Tom Farbanish and Nick Cave worked with over 400 inner city children at the Pittsburgh Glass Center and presented a new glass installation for the Glass Art Society Conference and Three Rivers Arts Festival.

• Worked with the international committee of GAS on the planning committee
• Assisted in Pittsburgh site as co- host for the conference
• Instrumental in connecting the Carnegie Museum of Art and Phipps to the Year of Glass
• Personally gathered first grants from PA Council on the Arts, Comcast, Pittsburgh Plate Glass

• Fundraiser. Played the leading role in raising 3.5 million dollars through local foundations, and private individuals.
• Co-Founder with Ron Desmett. Conceived, implemented and directed the development and content of a public access glass center, a new initiative for Pittsburgh that enhanced the region’s arts production and educational resources and programs.
• Strategic Planning. Developed all first plans including a year long study of five similar organizations analyzing fundraising, impact on economy, sustainability, need for resources, case for support, and imaginative projections for a glass center in the Pittsburgh Region.
  
  “The Pittsburgh Glass Center is an open and comprehensive studio program dedicated to education, creation and promotion of glass art.
  
  By targeting the regional communities of artists, students, the general public and underserved populations, the PGC seeks to:
  • Provide an accessible and supportive studio environment for the creation of glass art.
  • Serve as a national forum for the advancement of the medium
  • Raise awareness of appreciation for glass art
  • Encourage the development and growth of new and emerging glass artists
  • Be a partner in the region’s cultural, educational and economic development.
  The PGC offers all levels of glass art education, from novice to professional, all taught by professional glass artists (both local and national). Programs at the PGC include:
  • A complete hot glass studio with furnaces, annealers and related equipment for working with glass
  • A flame working studio for beadmaking and sculptural work
  • A cold studio for sandblasting, etching, cutting and polishing
  • A moldmaking, casting and fusing studio
  • Flexible areas to support flat glass work and work in multimedia
  • A gallery and installation space for hosting shows and displaying the work of glass artists”
• Programming. Designed all first programs including classes for beginning to advanced students to professionals, unique after school programs, linkage with Carnegie Mellon University School of Arts for an ongoing classes in studio glass, survey development for national consumers, teacher profiles, and five year plan for exhibitions. The exhibition program includes, artist residencies to make new work, encouraging work by artists without prior glass experience and provisions of guidance by the artistic director and technical support from the Center staff to complete artists’ projects.
• Technical Innovations. Responsible for new high efficiency and convenient furnace designs, obtaining key donations of building materials and furniture. Worked with architects to redevelop an existing building for new use. Achieved Gold LEED certification for building and facilities

• Joining the faculty as a lecturer in 1976, I reorganized the 4000 sq. ft. glass art studio program and facility. By 1979 I had acquired donations of materials to build a state of the art studio with a 1000 lb continuous feed furnace, two 500 lb, glass furnaces of black and white glass, 3 glory holes and 10 annealers. This new facility enabled expansion of programming to match technical processes with the conceptual and aesthetic shifts in the medium.
• Authored two PA Council for the Arts Grants for the Department of Art in 1985 and 1986 to bring in Howard Ben Tre, Susan Stinsmuehlen, William Carlson, James Carpenter, Valerie Arber, Wendy Muriyama, Paul Marioni, Chris Robbins, Howard Shapiro, Nance O’Bannion, Al Paley and Dale Chihuly.
• Directed campus wide Art Lecture Series for Department of Art to bring in Joseph Campbell, Vito Acconci, Rosalind Krauss, Joseph Campbell, Eric Fishel, Patterson Sims and James Surls.
• Represented the Department of Art on the Faculty Senate 1982-84

• Studied with host Lino Tagliapietra at Effetre Glass Factory, Murano, Italy