A Glass Act CBU hosts a retrospective of works by Richard Ritter. by David Hall he Christian Brothers University Gallery begins its 1999/2000 season with an exhibition of the studio glass art of Richard Ritter August 20th through October 10th. The 30-year retrospective of Ritter's work is one of many events celebrating the October 9th inauguration of CBU's 20th president, Brother Stanislaus Sobczyk. Ritter, who was born in Detroit, attended the Art School of the Society of Arts and Crafts as well as the Penland School of Crafts. The artist's studio glass is part of collections throughout the U.S. and Canada, including American Craft Museum, Corning Museum of Art, Bergstrom-Mahler Museum, Asheville Art Museum, Chrysler Museum, and the White House permanent collection. The studio glass or art glass movement began in the '60s in Toledo, when artists Dominic Labino and Harvey Littleton developed methods for working in glass within a small studio environment. Not only did they demonstrate the feasibility of a small operation but they also challenged the traditional boundaries of the medium for purely functional purposes. The blurring of the lines between art and craft initiated by Labino and Littleton continued in the work of Mark Peiser, Marvin Lipofsky, and Dale Chihuly. Littleton later taught Chihuly, the most recognized glass artist today, as well as the founder of the Pilchuck School outside Seattle. From the Toledo and Pilchuck workshops, centers of art glass spread all over the country, to places like Brooklyn's UrbanGlass, Centre College in Danville, Kentucky, and Penland in North Carolina, among others. Ritter began using glass while teaching at the Center for Creative Studies in Detroit during the late '60s; and in 1971, while studying at Penland, was introduced to the Venetian Caning technique that he has been perfecting ever since. The artist is highly acclaimed for his use of the murrina technique, in which slices of patterned glass canes (millefiori) are embedded into translucent glass. While popularly associated with Venetian glass vessels, a background in drawing and illustration informs Ritter's technique more. The organic forms and textures, swimming among swirling lines within a translucent glass ovoid (generally), appear as an alien terrarium frozen in time and space. By flattening a side of the egg, a window is formed to direct the viewer's gaze; but it also appears to cross-section the embedded murrinis, creating complex patterns on the surface. Ritter's approach to working with the glass is intuitive. "Technique is not involved," Ritter says. "I don't even think about it." Although he sometimes begins with a drawing, the spontaneous interplay with the molten glass is largely responsible for the way in which a piece turns out. It is precisely this struggle to let the glass "speak" that gives these works their organic quality, resembling molecular and coral forms. The process is laborious. The artist is involved in every step, from mixing his own soda-lime glass to taking it through various hot and cold stages. When hot, the glass can be blown, cast, fused, slumped, and similarly manipulated. Cold glass can be cut, etched, ground, polished, sawn, chiseled, and painted. One of the physical challenges is supporting the hunk of glass (as much as 30 pounds) on the end of a blowpipe during a piece's final stages. Although he usually has two assistants in the studio, Ritter is strictly hands-on with regard to supervising the operation since even slight changes in the various factors can have devastating results. Ritter, who has enjoyed a long relationship with Penland, lives on a farm 15 minutes from the school in nearby Youngs Cove, and is one of many glass artists who live in the North Carolina mountains. Over the years, he has taught many of the eight-week workshops held during the spring and fall at Penland. On Friday, August 20th, Ritter will give a lecture titled "The Studio Glass Movement: A Personal Journal Through the First 30 years" at 6 p.m. in Spain Auditorium located in Buckman Hall on the CBU campus. Reservations for the lecture are recommended and can be made by calling 321-4014. Following the lecture, an opening reception will take place in the University Gallery in the basement of the Plough Library from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.