Tag: Hope Forstenzer

Zack Gallery’s new director

Former Zack Gallery director Linda Lando, left, with new director Hope Forstenzer. (photo by Daniel Wajsman)

The Sidney and Gertrude Zack Gallery at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver has a new director, Hope Forstenzer – one of the few directors in the gallery’s history to be a professional artist.

Forstenzer is a graphic designer and a glass artist; she is a member of the Terminal City Glass Co-op. She takes over the reins of the Zack Gallery from Linda Lando, who retired at the end of last year.

“I have a background in visual art and performing art,” Forstenzer told the Independent. “For years, I was the artistic director of a multimedia company in New York. We worked on short plays: judged them and then produced them around New York. It was an amazing job, very interesting, but it didn’t pay my bills. For that, I worked as a graphic designer.”

She also taught graphic design, first in the United States – New York, Seattle and Baltimore – and, later, in Vancouver, after her wife accepted a job at B.C. Children’s Hospital in 2012 and the family moved here. Forstenzer has been teaching graphic design at Emily Carr University of Art + Design and at Simon Fraser University.

The artist began working with glass in 2001, while still in New York. She liked it so much that she made it her principal medium. A number of glass shows in Seattle and Vancouver have included her pieces.

“I had two solo shows for my glass, both here in B.C.,” she added. “I also participated in a group show at the Zack in 2015.”

The life of a freelance artist is a hectic one. Forstenzer has had to juggle her teaching schedule and studio time, plus a family with young children. She longed for more professional stability.

“I started looking for a steady part-time job,” she said, “then I heard Linda Lando was retiring from the Zack. I always loved this gallery and its artists, loved the JCC. I decided to apply for the job. I’ve worked in leadership positions in the art field all my life, so this job seemed perfect, both in its essence and its timing.”

Her plans for the gallery are extensive. “I want to do at least as well as Linda did. She was a marvelous director, so I have big shoes to fill.”

Forstenzer is already working on future shows, both solo and group exhibitions, in various artistic formats. “I love diversity,” she said. “But a group show might be harder in some ways to jury and organize. Art is always subjective and, in a group show, some people will always like certain artists more than others. The trick is to make it work for the majority…. When a curator assembles a group show, it is a collaboration, like putting together a puzzle, making as little dissonance as possible from the disparate pieces. On the other hand, in a solo show, you create a flow of energy.”

With regard to the gallery and its place in the community, Forstenzer said, “I want to make sure the gallery is connected to the JCC. We are part of it, and that should be emphasized. It doesn’t mean only Jewish artists – the JCC has a diverse membership, it draws in people of all ages, skills and cultural influences. I want to reflect that in our future shows and programs. Linda started that with her amazing poetry series. I want to do more. Children’s programs. Sessions for older citizens. Workshops for families. I want interactions with the gallery. I want our visitors to be part of the shows.”

As for the artists, she said, “I want to create a nurturing environment for them in the gallery, want to encourage younger artists, not just in age but in experience. Some people only start in the arts after they retire, and their mastery in other areas makes them unique in artistic venues. I want to establish a relationship with our artists, so they will trust me.”

Forstenzer is sure that her being an artist herself is an asset for her work as gallery director. “I’m not only an artist, I’m a fan of the arts, of beautiful things of any kind. It’s not really that common. Many artists are not fans, they prefer their own art to anyone else’s, but I love art. When I visit a museum or a gallery, I want to absorb as much as I can of the other artists’ imaginations.”

Her years as an artist and as an art administrator give her a unique perspective – to see the gallery from both sides. “I can advocate for the artists,” she said, “but I also can and will represent the gallery and its patrons.”

While acting as the gallery director, Forstenzer said she will not exhibit her own work at the Zack. “It would be a conflict of interest,” she said. “I’ll never exhibit here. I will participate in the Terminal City Glass Co-op’s group shows as a glass artist, but, at the Zack, I’m the director, not an artist. I will keep a hard line between my glass-blowing and my gallery.”

To learn more about Forstenzer’s glassworks, visit her website, hopeforstenzer.com.

Olga Livshin is a Vancouver freelance writer. She can be reached at [email protected].

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Editor’s Note: This article has been corrected to reflect the fact that Hope Forstenzer was not the first Zack Gallery director to be a professional artist, but rather is one of the few directors in the gallery’s history to be a professional artist.

Glass exhibit at Zack Gallery

From left to right are artists Larissa Blokhuis, Kirsten Rankel, Maria Keating, Sonya Labrie, Joanne Andrighetti, Hope Forstenzer, Mona Ungar and Scott McDougall. (photo by Denise Relke)

From antiquity, glass has been used for utilitarian and ornamental purposes. The current group show at Zack Gallery, Works in Glass from Terminal City Glass Co-op, demonstrates both functions in the elegant and colorful creations of co-op members. Vases and funky animal sculptures, jewelry and abstract decorative pieces transform the gallery into a celebration of light and flowing forms.

Holly Mira Cruise, one of the co-op founders and its current executive director, told the Independent a little about the group’s history.

“Terminal City Glass Co-op is the first and only nonprofit, cooperative glass arts facility in Canada. It was founded in February of 2012 by Morley Faber, Joanne Andrighetti, Jeff Holmwood and myself. We came together around a mutual desire to see the glass community in Vancouver grow…. We have worked together since then. We started with 30 members, and we now have over 150. It’s a constantly changing community, and we see new members come in every month, and others move on to other opportunities.”

Many co-op members exhibit their glass art often, attracting interest from both customers and professionals. That’s how Linda Lando, director of the Zack, discovered them.

“Linda reached out to me earlier this year,” said Hope Forstenzer, one of the show participants and a member of the local Jewish community. “She had seen some of our co-op’s pieces during Culture Crawl, liked them, and wanted to talk about a show at the Zack.”

Forstenzer herself is in love with glass. “Glass is an amazing medium. It’s elemental,” she said. “There is nothing like it in the whole world. At different stages, it could be liquid and malleable or hard and bullet resistant. It reflects light and allows colors to play inside. It’s created with fire.”

A professional artist, Forstenzer didn’t start her artistic life with glass. “I worked in ceramics and, at one point, I designed several pieces as a combination of glass and ceramics. I couldn’t find the glass I wanted so I started taking classes to make my own glass. I loved it so much, I stopped doing ceramics and concentrated on glass.”

She even moved from New York to Seattle because of her fascination. “Many of the best glass artists in the world live and work in Seattle, and I studied with some of them. There are two glass centres in the world. Venice is one. Seattle is another.”

When her partner took a job in Vancouver a few years ago, Forstenzer moved here. She has been teaching glass-making for about 10 years now. She teaches a class at the co-op, and she also teaches graphic design at Emily Carr University of Art + Design.

Like Forstenzer, Cruise is also passionate about glass. “I tried almost every medium before glass. I painted and drew, I tried clay and metals, I made jewelry. I was an art school dropout. A friend who had been blowing glass since he was a kid told me, ‘Try glass, you’ll like it!’ He was right. I liked it and I never looked back. I became really attracted to the material, to the way it moves and feels and, of course, all the amazing colors. Glass is enthralling in a way that no other material has been for me. I think a lot of people find it has addictive qualities. There have been times over the past 20 years when I have taken a break from glass, but I always seem to go back. It calls me.”

To answer that call, she not only works as a glass artist but also manages the co-op, organizing all its programs and classes, and bringing in visiting instructors from all over the world. “TCGC offers classes in glassblowing, beadmaking, flameworking and sandblasting,” she said. “We make it easy for people to take the first steps. We also offer advanced learning opportunities for people who have practised for awhile. There is no post-secondary glass program in Vancouver, but there is one at Alberta College of Art and Design and at Sheridan College in Ontario. Hopefully, we will catch up with other provinces soon.”

Widely available education in glass-making is a relatively new development for such an ancient craft. Before the 20th century, glass was mostly worked at factories, and each one guarded its secrets.

“In the 1960s, the Studio Glass Movement started,” Cruise explained. “Glass-making moved from factories to independent artist studios. It became a lot easier for people to approach glass and learn it…. Today, there are books on how to set up your own studio and build your own equipment. People are 3-D printing with glass. This year, Emily Carr ran its first class in 3-D Design with Glass through our studio. It was a great success, and seeing the potential of glass as a material to be enhanced and developed with technology was thrilling.”

According to both Cruise and Forstenzer, the students taking classes at the co-op come in all ages and artistic levels.

“Our students are pretty diverse,” said Cruise. “We get all ages, from 17 to 75. Sometimes, it’s retired people who want to pick up a hobby, or younger people who want to become glass artists, or couples looking for something fun to do. We have something for everyone to try here.”

Works in Glass runs until Jan. 10. For more information about the co-op, visit terminalcityglass.com.

Olga Livshin is a Vancouver freelance writer. She can be reached at [email protected].