CAPPY THOMPSON

cappy thompson.jpg

For me, as a narrative painter, the issue has always been content.  The issue wasn’t glass, the material that I chose some 37 years ago.  Nor was it the painting technique — grisaille or gray-tonal painting — that I taught myself to use.  My work — which spans several decades and a variety of scales from the intimate to the monumental — has always been driven by content.

Early in my career I was drawn to the images, symbols and painting of the medieval period — but not just the Christian tradition of Western Europe.  I loved the content of Hindu, Pagan, Judaic, Buddhist and Islamic painting as well. 

 These were images created before the invention of “art” as we know it — before painters controlled the content of their work.  These were works decreed by religious and political authorities to depict the magnificence and beauty of the natural and divine order.

 What I loved was the naïve naturalism and devout simplicity of that period — like the folk art of any period.

 I started by designing and painting glass panels based on the narrative content of mythology, fables and folktales, drawn in oblique projection, with transparent jewel-like colors.  Later I painted similar narratives on glass vessels.

 About fifteen years ago I found myself moving away from mythological narrative and toward compositions on vessels that drew upon images and themes from my personal life.  Elements would drift up and assemble into picture-poems that seemed to have a life of their own.

 I began to understand these works as reflections of the spiritual and psychological issues in my life.  I painted members of my family and myself in a kind of autobiographical fantasy, working with the mythopoetic materials of my life.  I cast myself into scenes from various spiritual traditions.

This began an autobiographical exploration of world culture and spirituality that continues to the present.

I see now, after more than three decades of work, that I am like those medieval painters striving to express magnificence and beauty.  But my expression focuses on the human experience of goodness, of hope and of love.”

—Cappy Thompson 

Cappy Thompson is an internationally recognized Seattle artist known for her mytho-poetic narratives on glass using the grisaille (or gray-tonal) painting technique.

Education

1976 B.A., Evergreen State College, Olympia, Washington

Selected Collections

Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, Australia

Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, Alabama

Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia

Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, New York

Hokkaido Museum of Modern Art, Sapporo, Japan

Huntsville Museum of Art, Huntsville, Alabama

Montgomery Museum of Art, Montgomery, Alabama

Museum of Arts and Design New York, New York

Museum of Glass, Tacoma, Washington

Racine Art Museum, Racine, Wisconsin

Tacoma Art Museum, Tacoma, Washington

Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio

Toyama City Institute of Glass Art, Toyama, Japan

Washington State Arts Commission, Olympia, Washington 

Honors

2005   Libensky Award, Pilchuck Glass School

2002, ‘09, ‘12 & '15 John Hauberg Fellowship, Pilchuck Glass School

1997 Washington Artist Trust Fellowship

1990 Visual Arts Fellowship, National Endowment for the Arts

Selected Exhibitions

2016 "Fired up: Women in Contemporary Glass," Mint Museum
“All Together Now,” Vashon Center for the Arts
"The Beauty of a Shared Passion," Tacoma Art Museum

2015   "Flourish: Selected Jewelry from the Daphne Farago Collection," Asheville Art Museum

2013 "Telling Tales: Narrative Works by Nate Steigenga, Cappy Thompson and Anna Torma, Bellevue Arts Museum
“Northwest Artists Collect,” Museum of Glass

2012 “Playing with Fire,” Museum of Arts and Design
“Pilchuck: Ideas,” Museum of Northwest Art

2011  “Seattle Collects,” Seattle Art Museum

2010  “Eyes for Glass: The Price Collection,” Bellevue Arts Museum

2006 “Cappy Thompson: Stars Falling on Alabama,” Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts

2005 “Cappy Thompson: Glass Vessels for a Dream Voyage,”  Hudson River Museum

2004 “Transformed by Fire,” Seattle Art Museum

2002 “Contemporary Directions,” Carnegie Museum of Art

1998-00   “American Glass: Masters of the Art,” Smithsonian traveling exhibition

1997   “Glass Today by American Studio Artists,” Boston Museum of Fine Art

1996 “Breaking the Mold: New Directions in Glass,” Huntsville Museum of Art

1995 “Holding the Past,” Seattle Art Museum

1994 “World Glass Now ‘94,” Hokkaido Museum of Modern Art

1992  “Australian International Crafts Exhibition,” Art Gallery of Western Australia

1989-92 “Craft Today U.S.A.,” American Craft Museum, International touring exhibition

1987 “Thirty Years of New Glass,” Corning Museum of Glass

Selected Public Art Commissions

2010 Tukes Valley School, Battle Ground, Washington.  Design, fabrication and installation of 2’ x 100’ frieze of painted windows, Commissioned by Washington State Arts in partnership with Battle Ground School District.

2008 Covington Library, Covington, Washington.  Design and fabrication of 6’ x 8’ reverse-painted glass mural.  Commissioned by King County Library System. 

2006 The Evergreen State College, Daniel J. Evans Library, Olympia, Washington.  Design, fabrication and installation of 10’ x 66’ art glass window wall.  Commissioned by Washington State Arts Commission.  Fabricated at Derix Glasstudios, Germany.

2005 Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, Montgomery, Alabama.  Design, fabrication and installation of art-glass triptych with central 22’ x 10’ arched window and two 12’ x 11’ side window/door surrounds.  Commissioned by Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts.  Fabricated at Derix Glasstudios, Germany. 

2003 Museum of Glass, Grand Lobby, Tacoma, Washington.  Design, fabrication and installation of 12’ x 15’ reverse-painted glass mural.  Commissioned by Museum of Glass. 

2000-03 Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, Seattle, Washington.  Design and fabrication of 33‘ x 90’ art glass curtain-wall.  Commissioned by Port of Seattle. Fabricated at Derix Glasstudios, Germany.  

Selected Bibliography

2016  Glass Art: 112 Contemporary Artists, by Barbara Purchia & E. Ashley Rooney, Schiffer

2013  Best of the Northwest: Selected Works from Tacoma Art Museum, by Margaret Bullock and Rock Hushka, Tacoma Art Museum

2011   “Collaborative Vitreography,” by Cappy Thompson, Walter Lieberman and Dick Weiss, Glass Art Society 2011 Journal 

2010  Masters: Blown Glass: Major Works by Leading Artists, by Susan Rossi-Wilcox, Lark; Glass Art from the Kiln, by Rene Culler, Schiffer

2006  500 Glass Objects: A Celebration of Functional and Sculptural Glass, by Susan Keifer (ed.), Lark; 25 Years of New Glass Review, by Tina Oldknow, Corning Museum of Glass

2005  Dual Vision: The Chazen Collection, by Nancy Preu (ed.), Museum of Arts & Design; “Sea-Tac Public Art Projects: The Glass Commissions,” by David Wagner, Stained Glass Quarterly (Winter)

2003  International Glass Art, by Richard Yelle, Schiffer

2002  “Whatever Happened to Stained Glass?” by Geoffrey Wichert, Glass 86 (Spring)

2001  Contemporary Glass: Color, Light and Form, by Ray Leier, Jan Peters and Kevin Wallace, Guild

1998  Glass: From the First Mirror to Fiber Optic: The Story of the Substance that Changed the World, by William S. Ellis, Bard

1997  “Cappy Thompson: Narrative, Mythopoesis and the Vessel Form,” by Shawn Waggoner, Glass Art (January-February)

1996  Pilchuck: A Glass School, by Tina Oldknow, U. of Washington 

1992  “Cappy Thompson’s Fabled World,” by Ron Glowen, Glass 47 (Spring)

1991  Out of the Fire: Contemporary Glass Artists and Their Work, by Bonnie Miller, Chronicle; Living with Art, by Rita Gilbert, McGraw-Hill

1989  Contemporary Glass: A World Survey from the Corning Museum of Glass, by Suzanne Frantz, Harry Abrams

Other Professional Experience

2016-present Board of Directors, Pottery Northwest

2011-12 Board of Directors, Glass Art Society (Auction Chair)

2003-present   Artistic Program Advisory Committee Member, Pilchuck Glass School, Stanwood, Washington

2003-10 Trustee, Bellevue Arts Museum, Bellevue, Washington

1989-92 Board of Directors, Glass Art Society (Secretary, 1990-92)

1987-present Workshop instructor: Bildwerk, Frauenau, Germany; California College of Arts and Crafts, Oakland, California; Canberra School of Art, Canberra, Australia; Centro del Arte Vitro, Monterrey, Mexico; Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia; International Glass Center, Dudley College, Stourbridge, England; Jacksonville University, Jacksonville, Florida; Kent State University, Kent, Ohio; Northlands Creative Glass Center, Lybster, Scotland; Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio; Penland School of Crafts, Penland, North Carolina; Pilchuck Glass School, Stanwood, Washington; Pratt Fine Arts Center, Seattle, Washington; Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, New York; Studio of the Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, New York; Toyama City Institute of Glass Art, Toyama, Japan; Urban Glass, Brooklyn, New York; Wanganui Summer School of the Arts, Wanganui, New Zealand; YaYa, New Orleans, Louisiana; et al.