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A Unity of Opposites: Recent Work by Michael Taylor

Presented by Tennessee State Museum at Tennessee State Museum

September 17-October 25, 2009

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An exhibition of new work by former Tennessee resident and pioneering glass artist Michael Taylor opens Thursday, September 17, at the Tennessee State Museum. A Unity of Opposites: Recent Work by Michael Taylor will showcase a dozen glass sculptures, including a monumental work composed of hundreds of individual pieces, as well as related prints.Taylor, the former head of the glass program at the Rochester Institute of Technology, has built an international reputation for his use of form, line, color and light.

The artist has spent years pioneering and perfecting the cold-working process applied to optical glass. Highly technical and physically demanding, cold-working allows Taylor to consider multiple variables and make artistic decisions at a much more controlled pace than the hot-worker’s furnace allows. He works on a piece for weeks at a time, first approaching each geometric component independently, then as part of an organic whole. Taylor employs the grinding wheel to shape and polish individual blocks of colored and clear glass, which are then laminated together with a two-part epoxy resin, creating depth and tonality. The resulting forms can be paired or arranged in endless combinations and variations of color, light, and shape.

Michael Taylor was born in Lewisburg, Tennessee, in 1944. Upon earning his B.S. in art education from Middle Tennessee State University, he was awarded a scholarship to the prestigious Penland School, where he was introduced to glass as a fine art medium. A teaching career that was to span 33 years began immediately after he received his M.A. in sculpture and ceramics from East Tennessee State University in 1969. The following year, he attended the Toledo Museum School’s Glass Workshop, where he met Dominick Labino, Harvey Littleton, and other seminal figures in the studio glass movement who exerted a powerful influence on his developing aesthetic. A distinguished list of international awards, exhibitions, commissions, and teaching appointments followed.