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Henry Halem: Inspiring and Educating a Generation of Glass Artists

Talking Out Your Glass podcast

Release Date: 07/16/2024

Mathieu Grodet:  Expressing Complex Modern Themes via Multi-Disciplinary Glass Works show art Mathieu Grodet: Expressing Complex Modern Themes via Multi-Disciplinary Glass Works

Talking Out Your Glass podcast

Using over 17,500 letters of handmade murrine tiles, Mathieu Grodet composed La Déclaration des Droits de l’Homme et du Citoyen, which translated means the Declaration of Human Rights, which was written in 1789. Recreated in mosaic style, dark red was used to represent blood, with the ivory-colored background symbolizing the ivory tower that freedom must be taken from. Intense attention to detail combined with a contemporary message defines Grodet’s multi-disciplinary works in glass.  A French-born artist living and working in Canada, Grodet also creates thin and elegant...

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Talking Out Your Glass podcast

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Talking Out Your Glass podcast

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Talking Out Your Glass podcast

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Melissa Janda: Sharing Willet Studios’ Gems at AGG Conference show art Melissa Janda: Sharing Willet Studios’ Gems at AGG Conference

Talking Out Your Glass podcast

As lead painter and art department manager for Willet Studios in Winona, Minnesota, Melissa Janda will speak about Willet’s large-scale projects at the upcoming American Glass Guild Conference, being held in Mesa, Arizona, from May 22 – 24, 2025.  With 30 years of experience in the field of stained glass, Janda is adept at all aspects of stained glass production, specializing in glass painting, design and restoration work. From St. Agnes Catholic Church in Key Biscayne, Florida, to St. Jane de Chantal Catholic Church, Bethesda, Maryland, the results are stunning and speak...

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Meggy Wilm: Artist and Owner of Colorado Glass Works, D&L Art Glass Supply show art Meggy Wilm: Artist and Owner of Colorado Glass Works, D&L Art Glass Supply

Talking Out Your Glass podcast

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Talking Out Your Glass podcast

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Talking Out Your Glass podcast

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Joyce J. Scott: Repositioning Craft as a Forceful Stage for Social Commentary and Activism show art Joyce J. Scott: Repositioning Craft as a Forceful Stage for Social Commentary and Activism

Talking Out Your Glass podcast

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Talking Out Your Glass podcast

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More than 50 years after Henry Halem designed a series of cast glass sculptures inspired by the Kent State shootings, he decided to bring the imagery back to life. At a time when the Vietnam War empowered social activism and fueled political debates, the May 4, 1970, Kent State shootings seemed to take center stage, influencing several genres of music and art. Among these works was Halem’s glass sculptures.

“The imagery was based on the shootings at Kent State and the blindness that the political system had in relationship to what young people were about in protesting the war. They were blind to the generation that was protesting. And, so, I made these blinded images that had their eyes covered,” Halem said.

Today, Halem is at it again, creating another series of blinded sculptures, but this time for a different reason. He has created seven blinded sculptures in the series so far, three of which are on view at Habatat Galleries Detroit.

“I revived the imagery,” Halem said, “the blind imagery, to reflect the narrative of our blindness to the destruction of the earth, and who we are, what we are.”

As a teenager growing up in the Bronx, Halem learned to throw pots at the Greenwich House Pottery in New York’s Greenwich Village. Now, at 86 years old, he’s still making art.

Holding a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and an MFA from George Washington University, Halem did post graduate work at the University of Wisconsin as an assistant to Harvey Littleton in 1968. In 1969, Halem founded the glass program at Kent State University (KSU) and taught there for 29 years, subsequently teaching at Pilchuck Glass School and Penland School of Craft. He was one of the founders of the Glass Art Society and served as its first president. 

Halem’s body of work ranges from his early blown vessels to Vitrolite glass collages, glass castings to enameled and painted glass wall panels. His narrative boxes have been described as “… ordinary glass boxes filled with enigmatic objects and reverse glass drawings and paintings.” He is known for powerful responses to political events – the 1970 Kent State shootings, 9/11, and a memorial for American soldiers who died in Iraq. 

Exhibiting extensively throughout the U.S., Europe and Japan, Halem’s work is in the permanent collections of The Corning Museum of Glass, Cleveland Museum of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Toledo Museum, Detroit Institute of Art, High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Hokkaido & Niijima Museums in Japan, and the Decorative Arts Museum, Prague. He has been honored by the Glass Art Society and the American Crafts Council; he received the Governor’s Award from the State of Ohio as well as the President’s Medal for Outstanding Achievement from KSU. He penned Glass Notes: A Reference for the Glass Artist and is still an authority on all things glass.

Throughout the years, Halem has amassed a diverse set of techniques that are put into action with a little bit of know-how. No matter what he does regarding art, it gets “distilled” through what he has learned from one of his favorite books, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

“The moral of that book was, in order to fix something, you have to know how it works,” Halem said. “So, my search is into finding out how things work. That, and my belief that the artist’s job is to question authority in itself, is what drives me.”