The Scottish National Portrait Gallery is currently closed for a major refurbishment. It is scheduled to re-open in 2014. Alison Kinnaird has been commissioned to design and engrave the 'Sponsors Window'which will pay tribute to those who support the Portrait Gallery.

Portraits of major sponsors will feature in a stained glass window which will acknowledge their contribution. It will be the modern equivalent of an existing window on the same stair which shows the original sponsors of the Portrait Gallery when it was first built.

The image above shows a detail of the Portrait of Roy Dennis by Alison Kinnaird, which was commissioned by the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in 2003

Alison Kinnaird has been invited to Poland as a Visiting Professor at the Academy of Art and Design in Wroclaw. She will be giving a number of seminars and public lectures, as well as demonstrating her art of engraving. The visit will take place in late April 2010.

*POSTPONED TALK - Alison's illustrated talk about her work, and short recital on the Scottish harps which was scheduled for Thursday 19th November has been POSTPONED due to extreme weather. Apologies for any inconvenience: please keep checking with Blackwell house for the rescheduled date*

Contemporary Glass Exhibition
13 November 2009 till 3 January 2010

Alison Kinnaird has been invited to co-curate an exhibition of contemporary glass at Blackwell House, the beautiful Arts & Crafts house in Bowness-on-Windermere, Cumbria.

Titled 'Catching the Light' it includes the work of Yoshiko Okada, Vanessa Cutler, Adam Aaronson, Alison Kinnaird, Annica Sandstrom & David Kaplan, Naoko Sato, Alison McConachie and Anthony Scala. Each approach the relationship between light & glass differently, some using thickness, some transparency or surface texture, and some by putting light directly into the glass itself.

Alison will also be giving an illustrated talk about her work, and combining it with a short recital on the Scottish harps, on Thursday 19th November. *POSTPONED due to extreme weather - keep checking with Blackwell house for the rescheduled date*

Contemporary Figurative
Glass Exhibition
12th Sept - 15th Nov 2009

Alison Kinnaird is showing a number of recent works as part of the 'Clearly Drawn' Contemporary Figurative Glass Exhibition at Ruthin Craft Centre. Alison will also be giving a talk and harp recital at the centre.

Talk & Harp Recital
Sat Nov 14th, 7pm
Alison Kinnaird has two parallel careers, one as a glass artist & one as a musician. She is widely known as one of the foremost performers of Scottish harp music. Usually she keeps the two activities separate, but for some projects, she combines both. Alison will speak about some recent projects that have combined glass & music, and will play some of the great repertoire of the Scottish harps, which also has links with the harp tradition of Wales.

'Maze' to be shown at SGS 'Migrate' Conference, National Museum of Scotland, 31st Oct 2009

In 2008 Alison completed a major commission for the Royal Museums of Scotland. The installation is titled 'Maze' and is composed of engraved optical glass panels, 1.3 metres long, with programmed LED lights, dichroic colour and painted textile.

Mazes are symbolic in many cultures of both life & death, Paradise or Hell - the difficulty of finding a path through life. The circles in the background are formed by the natural drying process of some liquids, and represent both deacy & regeneration. The figures are linked by a golden line, which is programmed to appear as if running through the piece. The golden thread was often used in legend to find a way out of the maze, and symbolises the line of life.

'Maze' will be shown for the first time at the conference of the Scottish Glass Society at the National Museum of Scotland on 31st Oct 2009, when Alison will be speaking about her most recent work.



You can view a larger version of Maze & some details here in the glass gallery

As the museum is currently udergoing a major refurbishment, 'Maze' will not be installed in it's permanent position until the works are complete in the museum.

After a successfull exhibition at the Red House Cone, Stourbridge, with the Guild of Glass Engravers, the Glass Engraving Trust purchased two of Alison's pieces - 'Adam' & 'Eve' - and presented them to the Shipley Art Gallery, Gateshead. They are now on show in the fine collection there.




You can read more about this on the Shipley Gallery website here

and you can see both 'Adam' & 'Eve' in more detail in Alison's gallery

Alison's work will be featured as part of an exhibition at UrbanGlass in Brooklyn this year and she will also be teaching a masterclass: 'Engraving - Light & Form', as a visiting instructor from May 4th-8th.

Founded in 1977 by artists Richard Yelle and Erik Erikson as the New York Experimental Glass Workshop, UrbanGlass was the first artist-access glass center in the United States and is now the largest. When UrbanGlass opened its doors, glass as an art medium became available for the first time to a wide range of artists at an affordable price and today the facility serves as the primary studio of over 350 artists each year.

In addition to the artist-access studio, UrbanGlass offers a comprehensive education program of classes, workshops and intensives at every skill level - from novice to professional - in a wide variety of glassworking techniques.

Over 900 students a year come from around the world to study and work with a faculty that includes world renowned artists and designers and acknowledged glass masters.

To register for Alison's Masterclass, or any other classes, or to request a course catalog by mail, please contact Brian Frus, Director of Education at UrbanGlass, at 718.625.3685 ext. 237 or bfrus@urbanglass.org.

UrbanGlass, 647 Fulton St, Brooklyn, NY 11217, Entrance at 57 Rockwell Place, Third Floor

www.urbanglass.org

Alison Kinnaird will be exhibiting her glass work at the International Expositions of Sculpture Objects & Functional Art Fair (SOFA)in New York again this year.

The SOFA fairs, which take place in New York, Chicago & Sante Fe are described as the 'Foremost Fairs of Contemporary Decorative Arts & Design'

Alison's work will be on the Zest Gallery stand along with pieces from a number of other British Artists.

SOFA 2010 runs from 16th-19th April 2010 at the Park Avenue Armory, Park Avenue at 67th St.

www.sofaexpo.com

www.zestgallery.com

'Psalmsong', Alison's first glass installation work to showcase her use of light & colour, was made possible by a Creative Scotland Award from the Scottish Arts Council in 2002. It took a year to complete, and utilises engraved crystal panels with dichroic colour and optical fibre lighting, digital photography, printed textiles & music.

The glass work is based around a piece of music of the same name, composed & performed by Alison on the Scottish harp. The notes of the melody were recorded & analysed, and the patterns produced by sampling across the soundwave formed the basis of the glass design. The human figures & the colours represent the emotion in the music.

The lights & colours make use of optical fibre technology & the shadow projected by the engraving was photographed & digitally printed to produce a shadow banner, 4.5m long, which hangs behind the glass.




'Psalmsong' is now in the permanent collection of Scottish Parliament, Edinburgh. The video above, which shows the installation in its entirety and in detail, was directed by Robin Morton and is taken from Alison's CD / DVD album 'The Silver String' (Temple Records COMD2096), which contains a full length album & a DVD featuring two other short films and video interviews with Alison about her work.

More images & details of 'Psalmsong' are available in the 'Glass>Gallery' section of this website

The hotel Murano in Tacoma WA, USA is now open for visitors to see its exciting collection of glass. The owners commissioned 40 artists from around the world to make major works for the hotel. Each floor showcases an artist, while other works are in the public areas.

Alison Kinnaird's piece 'Interface' is situated in the grand corridor, opposite the entrance to the Ballroom. As North-East of the United States is a hub of glass-art activity, it is hoped that many interested visitors will take the opportunity to see Hotel Murano collection.

Hotel Murano
1320 Broadway Plaza
Tacoma WA
USA