
A Granular Process: Casting with Crystal
DATE
Saturday
TIME
1:00

3
LOCATION
Spring City Mill Studios, 20 East Bridge St., Spring City, 19475

Instructor
Anna Boothe
With degrees in sculpture from Rhode Island School of Design and glass from Tyler School of Art/Temple University, Anna Boothe has worked with glass since 1980. Included in the permanent collections of the Bergstrom-Mahler Museum of Glass, Corning Museum of Glass, Racine Art Museum and Tacoma Museum of Art, her cast glass work has been exhibited widely, including recently at the Albuquerque Art, Bergstrom-Mahler Glass, Fuller Craft and Kemerer Museums as well as during Venice’s 2022 Glass Weeks and in several villas in Italy’s Veneto Region. When exhibiting for the first time in each the Smithsonian, Philadelphia Museum of Art and American Craft Council Baltimore craft shows, she received “Best of” awards. In 2021, one of her flacons was awarded 1st Prize by the International Perfume Bottle Collectors’ Association, and in 2020 her glass installation won 2nd Place at the Fuller Craft Museum’s members’ exhibition. She and her collaborative partner Nancy Cohen exhibited their expansive glass installation, Between Seeing and Knowing, at the Bergstrom-Mahler Glass Museum, Oct. 2022-Feb. 2023, after which the museum acquired the work. The installation was previously shown at the Philadelphia International Airport and Philadelphia Art Alliance. Boothe taught in Tyler’s glass program for 16 years, helped develop and chaired Salem Community College’s (NJ) glass art program and has exhibited and/or lectured internationally in Australia, Belgium, Canada, Israel, Italy, Japan, Switzerland, Taiwan and Turkey as well as at numerous US universities and glass-focused schools. She served on the Board and as President of the Glass Art Society from 1998-2006 and is a former Director of Glass at Philadelphia’s National Liberty Museum. Presently, she lives in the Philadelphia area, where she is a freelance artist and manages the business through which she sells her decorative cast crystal works: www.patedeverity.com
About the Demonstration
Kiln-casting is arguably the lengthiest process by which glass is formed into three-dimensional objects. Because this technique involves multiple steps, together which can take days to months to realize any one form, Anna will approach her demo like a cooking show with pre-made examples to guide you through the lost-wax and pate de verre casting techniques she uses to create her sculpture, from the initial carving of forms in wax, and their transformation into leaded glass via several molding processes, kiln-firing and final grinding, polishing and assembly. Glass objects created using this method are translucent; uniquely, they absorb light and glow from within.