Glass is hot and cool, liquid and solid, transparent and opaque. Malleable when hot, it can be poured, pulled, blown, and built. Cold, it can be cut, polished, or painted. Glass can be as durable as stone or so fragile it can be shattered by sound. Like water, it can bend a line, change a shape, and reflect its surroundings. For modern artists it has become a vehicle for refuting and embracing tradition, for creating illusion and allusion, for pushing the boundaries of craft into art.

In 1962, when Harvey Littleton and Dominick Labino devised a glass oven that would fit in the artist's studio, they moved glass out of the factory and made it a medium accessible to all artists. They also directed what became the studio glass movement toward an emphasis on artistic vision and experimentation. The studio glass movement has since embraced the European tradition of working in teams or with assistants, and has incorporated traditional forms into its repertoire to great benefit. Even so, it is clear that individual creativity remains at the heart of the movement when one sees how artists continue to take this exciting medium to expressive new heights. Hot and Cool: Contemporary Glass featured some of the recent trends in studio glass. Emphasis was on the wide range of techniques that go beyond simply blowing air through a tube.

The artists in this exhibition were Christine Barney, Christopher Belleau, Sonja Blomdahl, Bruce Breslow, Anthony Corradetti, Shane Fero, Jody Fine, Paul Housberg, Dinah Hulet, Bob Kliss, Tom Kreager, Richard LaLonde, Sherry Leedy, John Leighton, David Levi, Robert Levin, Liz Manfredini, Kathleen Mulcahy, Karen Paust, Ed Pennebaker, David Ruth, Lisa Schwartz and Kurt Swanson, David Schwarz, Rolanda Scott, Randy Sewell, Mary Shaffer, Alison Sheafor, Josh Simpson, and Paul Stankard.

Hot and Cool: Contemporary Glass was curated by Robert Cugno, independent curator, Media Gallery, Garnett, Kansas. The exhibition toured by ExhibitsUSA, a division of Mid-America Arts Alliance. The project was supported by a grant from the Texas Commission on the Arts.