We just had a missive from our fave glass curator, Michael Scarrone, with a pictorial spread of Wagga Wagga’s National Art Glass Gallery’s summer show, Peter Minson: Six Decades of Reflection.

To quote Michael…“The latest exhibition we have here is a solo effort from Peter Minson. I visited Peter a couple of years back on one of my treks to Canberra and was gobsmacked at the variety of working styles and techniques he has developed and perfected in his working life as a glass artisan. The art glass works were not created specifically for this exhibition, rather I have chosen from his studio several works from the huge variety of his working styles and displayed them in groups so as to represent the breadth of his palette.

I think it is vitally important that the National Art Glass Gallery honour’s glass pioneers like Peter Minson and brings attention to the impact they have had on the Australian studio glass scene. As you know Peter has mentored, taught, displayed and demonstrated for over 60 years; what a monumental achievement. Peter told me he had never had a solo exhibition. It is so great that the National Art Glass Gallery not only display new or mid career artists but can offer art glass pioneers like Peter the opportunity to display his wares.”

Which is one of the pivotal aspects of the Wagga Wagga Art Gallery’s importance in the scheme of Australian Studio Glass. The NAGG isn’t predicated on only the Pick of the Pops and/or the latest kachingable darling being lionised by the commercial glass gallery scene. Its charter instead is to record and represent the sector as a whole; like a living collective treasury of a constantly evolving and exciting art/craft movement that took hold here – like a veritable fulgurite lightening strike – in Australia (and in Wagga Wagga most particularly) back in the early 1970’s.

Peter Minson is the latest in a long line of stalwarts of the Australian Studio Glass Movement to be showcased at the NAGG during Michael’s 21-plus year tenure as the Curator of the National Art Glass Collection, joining a stellar cast of germinal movers and shakers: Stephen Skillitzi, Julio Santos, Gerry King, George Aslanis, Denis O,Connor, Nick Mount, Stephen Proctor, Elizabeth Kelly, Judi Elliott, Rish and Alistair Gordon, Kirstie Rea and Emma Varga.