In Concert With Glass
The Women Leaders Shaping 21st Century Glass in the United States
This project is currently in progress and will identify 25 important women leaders shaping 21st century glass in the United States, and examine how their roles, contributions, and activities are influencing glass, which has been historically, globally, male-dominated.
I have been chipping away at this project since 2024 and its official launch took place in Fall 2025, when the Glass Art Society selected my panel proposal for the June 2026 Conference at Corning. There, I will moderate a discussion on the subject with three contemporary women leaders in glass: Tami Landis, Curator of Postwar and Contemporary Glass at the Corning Museum of Glass, Brandi Clark, Executive Director of GAS, and Dr. Jessamy Kelly, Head of Design and Senior Lecturer in Glass and Ceramics at Edinburgh College of Art (ECA).
In the meantime, I am sifting through literature and collecting data through a survey and interviews to research: who are the women* leaders shaping contemporary glass in the United States during the 21st century; and how are they influencing glass through their roles, contributions, and activities?
Project Background
Glass, like many disciplines within craft, design, and art, has been male-dominated until perhaps the 21st century, though gender gaps and inequalities exist (Association of Art Museum Directors 2014, Glass Art Society 2017, National Museum of Women in the Arts 2024). Only recently have institutions begun recognizing women for glass activities, historically and in the present. For example, the Rakow Research Library (Corning Museum of Glass) added the website subject guide “Women in Glass” only in 2019 (2024). During the last two decades, acknowledgement of women’s work in glass by the wider glass/craft/art community has accelerated, with attention given to women maker/artists who use glass material in creative practices—exemplified by the growing body of exhibitions focused on them (Fondazione Berengo 2020– 2021, Pittsburgh Glass Center 2024–2025, Racine Art Museum 2022–2023, Sandwich Glass Museum 2020– 2021, Toledo Museum of Art 2017–2018, Wayne Art Center 2017).
Gap
But there is a gap in the research and literature around contemporary women glass leaders, whose contributions, activities, and roles are critically shaping glass in the United States—an opportunity to explore exists here.
This project will fill this gap by identifying, surveying, and studying the women glass artists, collectors, curators, educators, founders, innovators, and gallery/museum directors, who are under-recognized yet leading and shaping 21st century glass in the US.
This project will examine how their roles, contributions, and activities are influencing glass—not only the creative products using glass—but also glass studio environments, the glass community, access to the material, and pathways forward with and for glass. It is timely as the first quarter of the 21st century closes.
Goals
1. To identify and profile 25 women leaders critically shaping 21st century glass in the US; Objectives: by surveying the glass community; by utilizing my extensive glass network/experience
2. To examine these leaders’ contributions to glass, their priorities, and how their work will resonate in future decades; Objectives: by researching women’s leadership and activities through available documentation; by conducting in-person and Zoom interviews with select women leaders and others with perspectives on them/their work; by studying trends in their work as a group
3. To heighten awareness within the glass/craft communities of women leaders’ impact on the glass discipline, while adding to the wider discourse about women in the arts; Objective: by presenting the research through accessible, multi-media channels to glass and wider craft/art audiences
Scholarly Context
This project is closely aligned with the exhibitions and accompanying catalogs referenced above, however, its focus is wider to recognize and include women leaders working in roles not only as “artist/maker”, but also as “curator”, “director”, “collector”, “researcher”, “founder”, and “educator” in glass. In many ways this project —with its planned women profiles—is similar to Kohler’s book "Women working in glass" (2003). Unlike Kohler's book, which highlights mostly American women glass artists in the late 20th century, the scope of this research is more inclusive of women’s leadership roles in glass, and concentrates attention on the contemporary period of the last 25 years of the American glass landscape. The project is also similar to "New Women’s Work: Reimagining "Feminine" Craft In Contemporary Art" by Vizcarrondo-Laboy (2024)—as it will also profile women shaping the craft field to add to the discourse on women in the arts while telling their specific stories—but this research will be specific to glass, focused on the United States, and more encompassing of women’s leadership activities.
Approach/Work Plan
I will approach the project in 3 phases: Research, Analyze, Report/Outcomes.
Research
Survey: Using an online qualitative survey tool, I will canvas the glass community through my glass networks to gather perspectives about women glass leaders across the US from various constituency groups (public/private studios/makers, academia, non-profit orgs, for-profit galleries, etc.). This will inform my interview list of women leaders.
Literature and Exhibition Reviews: There are two primary, geographical glass “hotspots” which I intend to visit for primary source material at research institutions—New York and the Pacific Northwest (e.g. Rakow, Pilchuck, Bullseye, GAS, etc.)—to gather information from articles, books, exhibition catalogs, etc.
Interviews: Using the survey information and drawing on my own experience/networks, I will conduct online and in-person interviews with women leaders
Analyze
I will sift through the survey data, literature reviews, and interviews to identify characteristics/trends in the women’s work shaping glass and their significant impacts
Report/Develop Outcomes
My plan is to deliver a multi-media presentation to the Glass Art Society (GAS) along with a journal article to be published in the GAS Journal of the conference proceedings. To enable wider access to the project, I will develop a dynamic website devoted to profiling women leaders in glass and discussing impacts of their roles and activities. A book will hopefully follow.
*The term “women” is wide/encompassing cis-gender, people assigned female at birth, female-identifying, transgender
Sources/Bibliography
ARTICLES & ESSAYS
Association of Art Museum Directors (2014) The Gender Gap in Art Museum Directorships [report]
Feldman, K. (2019) "Women's Locker Room Talk: Gender and Leadership in Museums" in Diversity, Equity, Accessibility, and Inclusion in Museums. Ed. by Cole, J. B. and Lott, L. L. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 21–24.
Ruffner, G. (1988) “Speaking of Glass”. American Craft Council (48) 5, 32–35, 64
Zynsky, T. (2012) “Women Who Helped Pave the Way”. The Glass Art Society Journal, 2012, p. 52.
BOOKS
Kohler, L. (2003) Women working in glass. Atglen, PA: Schiffer Pub. Ltd.
Vizcarrondo-Laboy, A. (2024) New Women’s Work: Reimagining "Feminine" Craft In Contemporary Art. Rizzoli International Publications
EXHIBITIONS & CATALOGS
2017–2018. Breaking the Glass Ceiling: Women in Glass. Wayne Art Center
2017–2018. Fired Up: Contemporary Glass by Women Artists from the Toledo Museum of Art. Toledo Museum of Art
2017–2018. No Glass Ceiling! Women Working in Glass, Part 1. Palm Springs Art Museum
2020–2021. In Her Voice – Influential Women in Glass. Sandwich Glass Museum
2020–2021. UNBREAKABLE: WOMEN IN GLASS. Fondazione Berengo
2022–2023. She Bends: Redefining Neon Legacy. Museum of Glass
2023. On Fire: Surveying Women in Glass in the Late-Twentieth Century. Racine Art Museum
2024–2025 smash the ceiling, floor, and walls; take the broken shards and blow it back. Pittsburgh Glass Center
PODCAST
Waggoner, S. (2024) Talking Out Your Glass [online podcast: nine seasons] available from <https://talkingoutyourglass.com/>;
VIDEO
Glass Art Society (2017) Karen Donnellan/Suzanne Peck “Blow Harder: Language Gender and Sexuality in the Glass Blowing Studio” [recorded lecture] June 2017. Norfolk, Virginia: Chrysler Museum of Art
Netflix (2019–2024) Blown Away [TV series with 4 seasons] https://www.netflix.com/title/80215147 Zynsky, T. (2012) “The Double X-Factor “ [video] Corning Museum of Glass. 51st Seminar on Glass, 2012, Disc 11.
WEBSITES
Corning Museum of Glass (2024) <https://libguides.cmog.org/womeninglass/overview>
National Museum of Women in the Arts (2024) <https://nmwa.org/support/advocacy/get-facts/>
She Bends (2024) She Bends [online] <https://www.shebends.com/>