TOMMIE RUSH

Tommie Rush, a native of Mobile, Alabama, is a glass artist who lives and maintains a studio, Tomco Inc., in Knoxville, Tennessee. She began her early studies in ceramics which ultimately lead her to working in glass. By 1980, Tommie Rush began to share a studio space with renowned artist Richard Jolley, of whom she married several years later. Through tireless experimentation and the development of custom blended glass mixed in the studio, Tommie Rush has created a unique and identifiable style which has been celebrated in over 75 exhibitions and was honored in a retrospective exhibition at the Mobile Museum of Art in the spring of 2011. Her work can be found in numerous private and museum collections throughout the United States including the Sheldon Art Museum and Sculpture Garden in Lincoln, Nebraska, the Renwick Gallery in Washington D.C., the Tennessee State Museum, Nashville, Tennessee, among others. Most recently Tommie Rush completed a glass and welded steel site specific commission for the headquarters of Scripps Networks in Knoxville, Tennessee. As a tireless supporter of the arts, Tommie Rush has served on several national boards including the Glass Art Society in Seattle, Penland School of Craft, Asheville, North Carolina, and currently with the American Craft Council located in Minneapolis, Minnesota and is very active with her local arts community.

Education                               

1972-1976   BFA, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee

1975-76   Arrowmont School of Crafts, Gatlinburg, Tennessee

1976-81   Northshore Pottery, One-person clay studio, Knoxville, Tennessee

1986   Galerie Angela Hollings, Hameln, West Germany

PUBLIC COLLECTIONS    

Bank of Nashville Corporation, Nashville, Tennessee

Boatmen's Bank, Memphis, Tennessee

McDonald's Corporation, Oakbrook, Illinois

Mobile Museum of Art, Mobile, Alabama

Morgan Keegan and Company Inc., Memphis, Tennessee

North Carolina State University Museum of Art and Design, Raleigh, North Carolina

Ogden Museum of Southern Art, University of New Orleans, New Orleans, Louisiana

Renwick Gallery of the National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC

Scripps Networks, Knoxville, TN

Sheldon Art Museum and Sculpture Garden, Lincoln, NE

Tennessee State Museum, Nashville, TN

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS

2011   Mobile Museum of Art, Richard Jolley and Tommie Rush: A Life in Glass, Mobile, AL

2008   Kentucky Museum of Art & Craft, The Art of Giving, Group Show, Louisville, KY

2007   The Glass Menagerie, Fire & Form, Group Show, Corning, NY

2006   Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, Group Show, Colorado Springs, CO

2003   Kentucky Museum of Art and Design, The Glass Vessel, Louisville, KY

2001   American Craft Museum, Objects for Use, New York, NY
Reston Arts Center, Art of Glass, Reston, VA

2000   Lighthouse Center for the Arts, Glass Masterworks, Tequesta, FL

1999   Gallery W.D.O., The Nature of Things, Charlotte, NC

1998   Tennessee State Museum, Celebrating Tennessee Women Artists, Nashville, TN

1996   Kentucky Art and Craft Gallery, Spotlight '96, Louisville, KY

1995   Fellow's Choice Exhibition, ACE, Juried show, Baltimore, MD

1994   Museum of New Mexico, Romantic Modernism, Benefit Exhibition, Santa Fe, NM

1993   Spirit House, Sculpture Center, New York, NY

1992   Hunter Museum, Benefit Auction, Chattanooga, TN, Juried Invitational

1989   Smithsonian Museum Shop, Holiday show, Washington, DC

1987-89  Yamaha Galleries, Group exhibition, Japan

1988   Mobile Museum of Art, Two-person exhibition, Mobile, AL
American Craft Museum, Benefit Auction, New York, NY, Invitational
Alliance Museum, Two-person exhibition, Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis, IN

1987   Galerie Angela Hollings, Two-person exhibition, Hameln, Germany

1986   Piedmont Craftsmen, Inc., Group exhibition, Winston-Salem, NC, Invitational