In Memory of Claes Oldenburg, 1929 – 2022

Claes Oldenburg made a powerful statement with his art, transforming everyday objects into monuments that astonish and delight us continually. The audacity and absurdity of a 45-foot-tall steel clothespin as a public statue is both ridiculous and profound, considering the huge task of designing, fabricating and mounting the piece in the center of a major city. How do you get from the sketch of a thought to technical drawings, to the engineering design needed to secure the 10-ton sculpture on its illuminating platform, to contracting and working with the steel fabricators? Who knows how many other hurdles had to be jumped. Sheer confidence and dedicated work is the only way to realizing such an idea.

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There’s a comedic aspect of his art because of the unexpected importance given to things we take for granted. His comments about art that “sits on it’s ass in a museum,” and art that is big and heavy and “stupid as life itself” indicate his strength of conviction and desire to make comments about our society by glorifying so many ordinary and highly recognizable tools, utensils, and gadgets into instant landmarks wherever they appeared. His works are popular and enduring, with a “life” unequalled by most marble and bronze statuary, and they stand well apart from most contemporary large scale art because they are so relatable to the public by comparison. A person who says “I don’t know what it is, but I know it’s art” when describing an artist’s work, would likely know exactly what an Oldenburg sculpture is, and would also likely enjoy the outrageous monumentality of an ordinary thing so boldly transformed into importance.

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Oldenburg worked in collaboration with Coosje van Bruggen, his wife of 32 years, until her death in 2009. From 1981 on, he officially signed all his work with both his own name and van Bruggen's, and they often worked in collaboration with Frank Ghery and with other architects to integrate the sculpture most effectively in numerous projects around the world. The distinctive look of the sculpture set it apart from most contemporary art from the beginning in the 1960s with his first efforts to be iconoclastic and depart from tradition. Even among POP art works, the giant flashlight or the giant saw stuck in the ground and many other such instantly familiar but strange monuments established a territory in the art world that only Oldenburg works could occupy.

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Red Telephone, 1970

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Pink Alarm Clock, 1970

Oldenburg works of the 1970s, when the focus on mundane objects began, influenced me the most. I made objects such as telephones and clocks with hot glass in reaction to the boldness of Oldenburg works. The simplicity of the objects and the shock of such a thing being so real, not just a drawing or a painting for example, inspired me to explore my own sense of societal observation to find meaningful images worth articulation as objects. I’ve never made anything that looks like an Oldenburg sculpture, but the attitude I explored has remained in my art. This pushed me far away from the use of glass in the traditional manner, and it led me to invent and adapt many ways of working with the materials I now use in realizing my ideas.

Oldenburg’s passing closes a chapter in art history that marks a generational change. Considering the art world of today with so many attempts by galleries and museums to exhibit artist’s works that have been “marginalized,” and widely common attitudes pushing trends of certain styles and “looks,” the subjective notions addressed by Oldenburg no longer have much presence in contemporary art. But Oldenburg’s art remains apart from the mainstream, and the sculptures will exist for many decades to come, to delight and puzzle us with their distinctive power.

—Dan Dailey

Shawn Waggoner interviews Dan Dailey on "Talking Out Your Glass" Podcast

Listen to Dailey’s new interview with Shawn Waggoner at Talking Out Your Glass podcast

“One would be hard-pressed to think of any other artist working with glass whose work reflects as many varied and compelling styles as Dan Dailey’s. From vessel forms to his Individuals to lamps, sconces and chandeliers, these beautiful, sometimes humorous pieces dazzle through a combination of colored glass and intricate metal work. No matter the format, Dailey’s work expresses humanity, historical reference, and reverence for the natural world.”

— Shawn Waggoner

As editor of Glass Art magazine from 1987 to March 2019, Shawn Waggoner has interviewed and written about multitudes of the world’s greatest artists working glass in the furnace, torch and on the table. In 2016, Waggoner turned her passion for glass art into a “Terry Gross” style podcast featuring interviews with the likes of Lino Tagliapietra, Narcissus Quagliata, Dante Marioni, Robert Mickelsen, Toots Zynsky, Shayna Lieb, Kelly O’Dell, Raven Skyriver, Ginny Ruffner, Richard Marquis, Judith Schaechter, and many more.

Rated in iTunes New and Noteworthy in 2018, Talking Out Your Glass continues to evolve, including interviews with the nation’s finest borosilicate artists making both pipes and sculpture on the torch. Other current topics include how to work glass using sustainable practices and how artists address the issues of our times such as climate change, the political chasm, and life in the age of technology.

Subscribe or listen on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, iHeartRadio or Google Podcasts

In Memory of William P. Daley, 1925 – 2022

William P. Daley was my teacher, my boss, my mentor and friend.

I met Bill in 1964 at the Philadelphia College of Art, where he taught basic design and color to my freshman class section. He was the most challenging, encouraging, entertaining – and confounding – of all teachers I had ever known, or have known since.

Bill’s weekly assignments generated intense work as we competed to impress him, while at the same time exploring concepts of design and color theory that most of us aspiring artists had never considered.

He had a way of presenting his assignments that jolted us into responses that stretched our imaginations and caused us to try all kinds of image-making, materials use, conceptual articulation, art history researching, word puzzling, and rituals of process aimed at bringing ideas to reality. His classes were always stimulating; far beyond the basic assignment-and-critique format.

I remained a student of Bill’s for my entire time at PCA, graduating in 1969. He was my primary teacher as a major in the ceramics program, as one of hundreds of students Bill taught in his span of time there – more than 32 years. We were all profoundly influenced by his attention to us and his ways of conveying a myriad of concepts, while demanding the best professional practice. In the years since, I have spoken with numerous artists who have similar memories of their time as Bill’s students, and he remained endeared to them for waking a creative spark that has sustained us in our work as professional artists.

Once during the late 1970s, I asked Bill to join me as a visiting artist to address a sculpture class I taught at Massachusetts College of Art & Design. Bill sat on a tall stool in the front of the classroom wearing a folded newspaper “printer’s hat” he had made before the students arrived. When the class had assembled, I introduced Bill. He looked around silently for a minute or so, which puzzled us all. Then he said, “Thank you for inviting me, I’ve just been released.” With a demonic smile on his face, he stared at one or two of the students, then me, then jumped off the stool and retrieved a stack of opened newspapers he had placed on the floor. He gave each student a sheet, then began to instruct them on the craft of making their own hats.

He had completely disarmed them, ridding them of preconceived notions of routine teaching. When they were all wearing their new paper hats, he continued by showing slides of ancient objects and discussed symbols common to diverse cultures, explaining why he found them fascinating. He showed and discussed his own art for about 45 minutes, then asked them to begin drawing, and had each develop a symbol, or multiple symbols, that represented some aspect of their upbringing and their own cultural background. He went from student to student and enthusiastically encouraged them to push further, to try things they hadn’t yet considered, and to explore their imaginations. Eventually the class was working with corrugated cardboard and tape to build larger 3-D versions of their drawn forms. Everyone was deeply engaged in the work. The Bill Daley visit became a memorable highlight of the semester. Bill had many such presentation quirks, gaining attention by odd actions, and brought his audience into more focused listening to the thoughts he wanted to convey.

While Bill Daley was a professor who dedicated many years of his life to PCA, and traveling for workshops and lectures to hundreds of other schools and summer programs, he was also a professional artist who maintained his own studio. While I was still a student, Bill asked me to assist him. This began a period of close work with him on larger objects and commissioned works. Quiet days of building clay forms, conversing about experiences, human nature, primitive societies, materials and processes and many other things led to a mutual understanding of the intellectual basis for creative work. He had a unique way of seeing situations; seeking deeper connections while knowing the origins of the obvious. With him, I learned about the development of a thought toward the building of large and complex works. We traveled to industrial kiln works, with 100 foot-kilns, to fire dozens of large components in one firing, and to job sites in Philadelphia and New York to install his sculptures and murals; all of which gave me perspectives that I still employ in my own commissioned art 55 years later.

Bill was a maverick in his art within the group of clay artists usually associated with him. He maintained form exploration that was completely his own, unconnected to popular trends or market demands. His curiosity for inside/outside, male/female, and other symbolic opposites led him to develop a highly personal form language. His art has no parallel. Considering Voulkos or Autio or Woodman or Mason, or any of his contemporaries, Bill Daley was equally articulate in his thoughts through sculptural form, but aesthetically apart from them in his pursuit of pure dynamism. He was very aware of Abstract Expressionist rationale toward image-making, and he held deep respect for the serious endeavors and created works of fellow artists in many mediums, even while his own path was quite different. There is a distinctly modernist sensibility to the clay structures he imagined and built, while at the same time, an homage to ancient art, architecture, and symbolism that can be found throughout his works.

Bill Daley was raised in Hastings-on-Hudson, north of Manhattan, and remembered visiting New York City museums with his art teachers. His father was a house painter, and Bill assisted him, learning a working man’s methods. During World War II, he was recruited as a 17-year-old to join the Army Air Corp and became a B-17 ball turret gun operator. Shot down over eastern Europe, Bill parachuted into a frozen potato field, and became a prisoner of war. Many years later, memories from those experiences still made him cry. Though he never talked about this time in detail with me, I think the trauma of his time led him, and many fellow art students attending college on the GI Bill in the 1950s, to work seriously and hard to establish a meaningful life.

Bill was married to Catherine Stennes for 70 years, until her death last year. They were truly life partners, establishing their family of children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and even making some art together. Ethical behavior was at the core of Bill Daley’s thought and action. He was committed to Saint Paul’s Episcopal Church, Elkins Park, Pa., where he made the baptismal font and was a member for more than fifty years.

His dedication and his attitude toward very personal self-expression resulted in the production of hundreds of sculptures in the course of his professional life, and he has left a significant body of work that is among the best of his time in the art world he engaged so passionately.

—Dan Dailey

In Memory of Benjamin P. Moore, 1952 – 2021

Ben was always on the ball, watching everyone on the team and working with us to bring my drawings to reality as blown glass forms. He gave a damn about all the details in a passionate way. The situation he set up at BMI was unique, enabling me and many others to work with highly skilled friends; all of us focused on getting the piece just right no matter how far from tradition my concepts may have wandered. Ben, with Rich Royal and Dante Marioni gaffing, and Deborah Moore, and Preston Singletary, Robbie Miller, Paul Cunningham, Nadege Desgenetez, Brian Pike, Sam McMillen, Sean O'Neil, Peter Hundreiser, Joe Rossano, Ruth King, Paul DeSomma, Heather Gray, Tony Bianco, Greg Deitrich, Louis Scalfani, Michael Fox, Granite Calimpong and many other skilled and thoughtful individuals he brought in provided a palette of possibilities for me. Because of the studio he built and maintained, and the people he brought together, many artists like me have produced work far beyond our own skills and capacity.

Let us all remember the numerous positive contributions Benjamin P Moore made to the art world, and the glass community, that he loved. May we also extend our deepest feelings of sympathy to Deborah Moore, Ben's best friend, wife, and closest companion for so many years.

Expressing our thoughts so soon after Ben's life has ended doesn't give us time for perspective on all the work, the events, the accomplishments related to Ben and his dedicated efforts that have transpired over so many years. But many of us are compelled at this moment to say something to convey our emotions and respect and love for our departed friend. A significant chapter of our lives has come to a close.

I write in all sincerity about my friend, and I encourage all who loved Ben, as I have, to share a few words in his memory.

—Dan Dailey

"Silken" of the Individuals Series is Acquired by the Chrysler Museum of Art

NORFOLK, VA — The Chrysler Museum of Art has acquired Silken, a blown glass sculpture made by Dan Dailey in 2007. Standing 22 inches high, the life-size bust will join Dailey’s glass vases Repair (1983) and Liquid Visions (1980) as part of the museum's permanent collection. Silken is one of 128 unique blown glass figures from Dailey's ongoing Individuals series that he began in 2004.

“As in much of Dailey’s work, there is no attempt at realism. The essential qualities of the figure are conveyed through facial expressions, and each Individual is ripe with suggestive body language despite the absence of a full body.”

— CAROLYN SWAN NEEDELL, Curator of Glass

An exhibition of Dailey’s figurative work titled "Dan Dailey: Character Sketch" opened at the museum in February, 2020. The show featured 33 works that span four decades of the artist’s career, including Silken.