Wilmette native Susie Silbert learned to love art thanks to New Trier High School teacher Lynn Duenow, and to love glass thanks to an apprenticeship with Chicago-born artist Mark Peiser. Silbert, an art history teacher in Brooklyn, N.Y., will become curator of modern and contemporary glass at the Corning Museum of Glass in Corning, N.Y., on April 18.
Q: What prompted you to enter the world of glass creation?
A: It’s a terrible answer, but I’d heard that working with glass was very difficult and I wanted to try this thing that was such a challenge. Glass is science embodied, and physics, and chemistry, and in it, science and art combine.
Q: You took a leap into teaching and curating. How did that happen?
A: When I worked with Mark, I got interested in the history of art glass and of curation. There’s so much involved in curating that’s the same as making art. You’re still thinking in three dimensions and hoping to cause people to see and feel things. It’s a kind of engagement I’m suited for – researching and translating between artists and the public.
Q: Where can Wilmette area residents go if they’re interested in art and glass?
A: The Art Institute has some very good collections, and the Art Alliance for Contemporary Glass, (https://contempglass.org/), a national group, is very active on the North Shore. They have tours of collectors’ homes, and some of them are in the New Trier area. There are also studios like Ignite Studios (igniteglass.com/ Little Black Pearl (blackpearl.org/little-black-pearl and the Ken Saunders Gallery (www.kensaundersgallery.com).
Q: What are you looking forward to in your new position?
A: The museum added 100,000 square feet of space last year, including the 26,000-square foot Contemporary Art and Design Galleries. I’ll be overseeing programming there, and I’m eager to take it to the next level.
Q: Have you had the chance recently to work on glass with your own hands?
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A: I did get the chance to blow glass for the first time in maybe nine years last year, at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. It was fun!
–Kathy Routliffe, Pioneer Press
Twitter: @pioneer_kathy
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