DEARBORN, MICH.- The Stamelos Gallery Center will present Infinite Variety: Selections from the UM- Dearborn Glass Collection. What words come to mind when you think of glass? “Transparent,” “colorful,” “useful,” or “beautiful?” “Artistic” and “fascinating” might, as well. All these words and more apply to glass. We live daily with glass in our cars, houses, shops, places of worship, and our omnipresent cell phones. Yet glass by its unique physical properties is powerfully transportive. In its shapes, colors, and ability to transform light, glass can take us out of our own world and into the past, future, and places that are only imagined. This is why glass has been prized as a medium for creativity in workshops, factories, and artists’ studios for more than 5000 years.

Infinite Variety celebrates the beauty and diversity of art glass owned by the University of Michigan, Dearborn, located an hour from where the American Studio Glass movement was born in 1962. However, the pieces included in this exhibition represent more than this movement; they represent the latest works by artists such as Kim Harty and also reach back in time to the early 20th century. Featured pieces by international artists also cross oceans to Europe and Asia. The exhibition is organized into five themes that highlight key qualities of glass to showcase how artists play upon and confound our expectations of this medium.

Ancient and Modern: Furnaces, pipes, marvers, jacks; trailing, pulling, applying; these are the tools and techniques that are shared by ancient and modern glassmakers. Over thousands of years of art and craft and the emergence of local traditions, certain forms and products consistently appear to defy time and place.

Light: Glass might bring to mind transparency, but clarity is only a small fraction of glass’ artistic potential and fascination. Intricate recipes of mineral additions to raw glass result in products that can be intensely saturated with color or glowingly iridescent, each according to artistic taste.

Nature: Though born of sand, ash, and fire, everyday applications of glass can make it seem divorced from the natural world. Yet glass can take on the shapes and hues of the earth, plants, and animals through a variety of techniques and artistic inspirations. The wonder of glass is shared with the wonder of nature itself.

Prism: When the artistic mind and the versatility of glass converge, simple geometric forms take on breathtaking complexity. Though clean lines and optical clarity suggest stillness, prisms are activated through the play of light and movement of the eyes. The viewer is invited to an impromptu dance that can be velvet-smooth or hotly scintillating.

Art: Glass is not only a unique artistic medium with its own traditions. It also has been part of larger global artistic movements and traditions. Motifs and aesthetics are transposed and transformed across media and culture as glass expresses an artist’s personal perspective on the world.

This exhibition is the culmination of the project-based learning ARTH 402 Capstone seminar for UM-Dearborn Art History students. It also includes a curated selection of artworks inspired by glass and the five themes by students in the UM-Dearborn Applied Art program.