Glassworks

In the spring of 2022, our glass-historical exhibition returned to where it was created in 2018 – 2020: to Styria in Austria, which is portrayed as one of five glass landscapes in the exhibition. Styria and glass? In fact, in this old mining and industrial region we encounter a very distinct glass tradition. In the present, this is expressed in the tension between the Stoelzle Group as a global player, which has a highly automated glass production site in Köflach in Styria, and active arts and crafts studios.

First of all, the exhibition was a guest from March 1st to April 28th in the representative foyer of the Styrian Chamber of Commerce in Graz. “A pleasant art exhibition, a bit of distraction in the pulsating heart of the economy, which is faced with completely different, global challenges?”

This was an expectation at the opening, on invitation of the President of the Chamber of Commerce, Dr. Karl-Heinz Dernoscheg on April 4th, and greeted by Georg Feith, GEO of the Stoelzle Group, on behalf of the Styrian glass industry. However, during the guided tour of the exhibition with Katharina Eisch-Angus, there was a lively discussion about how productive glass is as a material in the dialogue between art and business. The spirit of the age and the economy are reflected in glass. With art, design, craftsmanship and manufacturing interacting, glass becomes an innovative economic factor.

That was the name of a well-attended event at the Munich Chamber of Crafts on January 10, 2022, despite Covid restrictions. The occasion was our touring exhibition “Glass Works. European Glass Lives in Craft, Art and Industry”, which stopped there over the Christmas and New Year period. In the Joseph-Wild-Hall, in the middle of Munich’s old art district Schwabing, and illustrated with pictures and stories from the Glass Museum in Frauenau, cultural anthropologist Katharina Eisch-Angus traced how European glass people always crossed borders, always breaking new ground – and how the international studio glass movement did just that from the hotspot Frauenau.

Afterwards there was an exciting panel discussion with Prof. Dr. Daniel Drascek and Wolfgang Loesche from the Bavarian Commission of Experts for UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage, together with Heinz Fischer and Sarah Höchstetter from Glass Works/Bild-Werk, and Selina Weber and Patricia Mund as Glass Works Trainees from the winter of 2019/2020 intake. The latter both described how they had used the Glass Works training as a stepping stone into self-employment.

Perhaps the most important message was that the era of the large glassworks in the Bavarian Forest is largely over. However, in small units, and with new structures, , glass still has a chance. And it is exactly here that Bild-Werk, with its experience and connections, is exactly right in time: here we can create a “turning point” that is currently not only emerging in East Bavaria, and that opens up new perspectives for regional development.

Each training phase has its own dynamic in its structure, and can develop and build on the experiences of the previous training phases. Each trainees’ group has its own character, which is formed from the dialogue between the selected trainees, with their individual profiles and projects on the one hand, and the changing tutors on the other. Learning from each other at eye level, in the interaction of craftsmanship, art and design is a key point of the training phases.
It was very pleasing that at the start of our third training phase, the number of applications had more than doubled compared to the previous time. When selecting the trainees this time more attention was paid to the technical basics. As a result, there were four trained glassblowers from three countries in the group!
Another novelty was the tutoring. Kit Paulson, a glass artist from the USA, supervised the project on site in Frauenau. Whilst B. Jane Cowie, glass artist and project manager from Singapore, was regularly connected to the group via the web, and was also available to the trainees individually as required. Both tutors were no strangers to Bild-Werk due to their work as summer academy teachers in previous years. In addition to the broad quality of their artistic content, they were also very valuable for the trainees because of their professional market presence in the digital age.
The trainees particularly benefited from the wider intercontinental contacts of the two tutors. The training was again accompanied by online lectures and discussions with successful players in the international glass scene.
The marketing courses could again take place as planned on the glass island of Bornholm. As a result, the trainees not only brought new “business skills” back to Frauenau, but also exciting insights into a region that offers studios and companies, especially of artisans, a structural base.