KET Program: Glassblower at Centre RELEASED: Mar. 8, 2001 DANVILLE, KY - Centre will be featured on KET in a documentary on Lino Tagliapietra, world renowned glass artist, who held a demonstration on campus last year. The program will air on Wednesday, March 14, at 10/9 p.m. CT on KET and KET2. The program will feature Tagliapietra creating his glass works at the Jones Visual Arts Center and visiting some famous sites of Kentucky. While here, Tagliapietra was named a Humana Distinguished Professor. Steve Powell, Centre art professor, was a co-producer of the program. Lino Tagliapietra was born to be a glassblower, but few could have foreseen just how well he would carry out that destiny. Born in 1934 on the island of Murano, the centuries-old center of Venetian glassmaking, Tagliapietra was apprenticed to a master at age 11 and at 21 had become a master himself. Today, he is one of the world’s pre-eminent glass artists, credited with changing the course of glass history by raising the international standards of glass craftsmanship. Now, an exciting new program, Maestro of Glass, airing Wednesday, March 14 at 10/9 p.m. CT on KET and KET2, documents the artist’s mastery of form, color and technique in the sculpture of glass through a series of public lectures and demonstrations he made at Centre College in Danville, where he was named the Humana Distinguished Professor for 2000. Glass artist and Centre College professor of art Stephen Powell serves as Tagliapietra’s guide as they take breaks from creating beautiful works of art to explore the beauty of the Bluegrass state. Among their stops are Churchill Downs, the Louisville Slugger factory, Three Chimneys Farm in Midway and the Labrot & Graham Distillery in Versailles. The program also briefly shows Tagliapietra at the Kentucky Art and Craft Gallery in Louisville, where some of his works were part of the "Millennium Glass" exhibit. For the last three decades, Tagliapietra has generously shared his unsurpassed experience, understanding and knowledge of traditional Venetian glassblowing techniques with glass artists and audiences around the world. He has been largely responsible for a new renaissance in glassblowing that has swept through the world of studio glassmaking. "Lino Tagliapietra is one of the few glassmakers who can successfully transmit his own sensitivity and intellect into an inanimate object," said Susanne K. Frantz, former curator of 20th-century glass at The Corning Museum of Glass. "His vessels and sculptures, which often incorporate filigree decoration, are, on a technical level, equal to the finest achievements of historic Venetian glassmaking." Maestro of Glass, co-produced by Stephen Powell and Marc Pingry, is closed-captioned for the deaf and hard-of-hearing. Viewers can find out more about programming on KET by visiting the KET Web site at http://www.ket.org, a Kentucky.com affiliate. - end - Communications Office Centre College 600 W. Walnut Street Danville, KY 40422 Public Information Coordinator: Telephone 859-238-5714 News and Events Home Page