Glass

Robert Brady
Trained and triumphant in ceramics, Brady took a risky segue into wood and now enjoys a rewarding career in two media.

The artisanal urge-the fundamental human desire to make something with one's own hands-has never been so endangered as it is right now. Quite frankly, this is a situation that sends a chill down my spine. Consider the work of Jeff Koons, one of the most widely discussed and highly praised artists of the last 20 years. His Hanging Heart, [figure 1] an oversized version of a shiny magenta bauble suspended from a golden ribbon, obviously manufactured to the artist's specs, recently sold at auction for $23.6 million.

By Ursula Ilse-Neuman, Cornelie Holzach & Jutta-Annette Page
Arnoldsche Art Publishers, with Museum of Arts & Design, New York, and Schmuckmuseum Pforzheim, Germany
$60

Every day, in the small, pic­turesque village of Essex, Connecticut, the glass artists Marc Petrovic and Kari Russell-Pool send their two daughters off to school, enter their non­descript 1,700-square-foot studio and work side by side until the children return at 3:00 p.m. The husband and wife, who first met in 1987 at the Cleveland Institute of Art, have worked closely for years, while at the same time maintaining a certain independence that allows them to distinguish one person's work from the other's.