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at 2260 Oak Bay Ave.

Saturday, July 12, 2008 10 am - 5:30 pm

(work subject to prior sale)

Opening Reception Sunday, July 13, 2008 1 - 5 pm

Artist in attendance

Elizabeth Ely, harpest, Karel Roessingh, piano

Exhibition continues until July 31, 2008

Mel Munsen was born in San Diego in 1946. He received his Bachelor of Science in graphic design from Portland State in 1969 followed by 6 months of graduate work in glassblowing. He immigrated to Canada in 1970 where his career in glass began in glass blowing.

Interestingly, Munsen spent from 1975-1993 buying and selling art and antiques specializing in late 19th century and 20th century glass and ceramics. Pursuing his love for glass, in 1993 he spent the year pouring hot glass in a glass factory. Beginning in 1994, he began teaching himself the process of fusing and slumping glass which he uses primarily today to form his pieces. Unlike his predecessors, whose work was done at the furnace and glory hole, his fusing and shaping process is completed entirely in kilns.

An admiration and curiosity about the work of Italy's mid-20th century glass artists Carlo Scarpa and Alfredo Barbini has led to Mel Munsen's technically groundbreaking and innovative glass work. Munsen arrived at his current fusing and murrini techniques through a fascination with the production Italian glass maker Venini's designs. He has the ability to produce incredible detail with maintaining a fine tuned balance of proportion and symmetry. He grinds and polishes his pieces until they are unusually thin but produces a transparency rarely found in fused and slumped glass. He uses both murrini and fused cane for the majority of the detail in his designs. His work is unmatched in his perfection of the technical aspects of fused and slumped glass.

One of Canada's premiere glass artists, Mel Munsen likens his work to a highly patterned plane reluctantly coaxed into often complex and delicate vessel forms. Mel Munsen's work can be found in selected public collections. Due to the difficulty and time necessary in creating his pieces, no two pieces are the same and those who have collected his work know they have something special.