The Blaze Mine Glass Art Association was founded in 1996 by János Polyák and Gergely Pattantyús. It became a Non-profit Art Foundation in 2006:
The Blaze Mine Glass Art Foundation
Founders
Péter Boda ceramic artist, Ottó Horváth sculptor, Bálint Kassai carpenter, forest technician, Norbert Kotormán sculptor, János Polyák glass artist.
Chairman: Gergely Pattantyús glass artist,
Deputy Chairman: Norbert Bukta painter.
The aims of the Foundation:
The learning and teaching of the traditional craft of glass making and the metier of glass blowing, practicing glass art, saving the endangered craft from dying out and handing it on; the rediscovery and restoration of glass craft and glass art.
The activities of the Foundation in keeping with its aims:
1. Study and research;
2. Education and teaching, developing skills, spreading information;
3. Cultural activities;
4. Preservation of our cultural heritage;
5. Developing Euro-Atlantic links.
Within the aims mentioned above, the activities of the Foundation include glass blowing, developing workshops, making, building and buying kilns and technical tools for glass work, making hand tools, making and selling glass art work. Glass blowing demonstrations and travelling glass blowing presentations, selling at markets, building up a 'guild' school system, setting up workshops in Hungary for the use of glass artists from abroad, establishing a professional library and computer database, supporting restoration, recreation, research, teaching, translation and publications, setting up a glass gallery, assisting exhibitions, locating associated crafts, ethnographic research and finally the making of fine art and applied art glass work.
Objectives:
Further to the aims mentioned briefly above, it is the aim of the Foundation to acquire and spread knowledge, maintain and keep alive the craft of 'hand-made' glass blowing and to recreate traditional forms of glass; to practice the way of thinking learned during this process and to present it in contemporary glass art work. The glass blower-artist-master decides on the function and shape of the object and its proportions, even during the blowing process. Thus the main aim is not the quantity of produced, but the production of glass objects of the highest quality, without rigid goals, where meticulous work is the guarantee of the possibility and capacity for change and variety.
To achieve such work, the objective of the Foundation is the establishment of creative workshops where the associated crafts, such as glass melting (chemical), ceramic, wood and metal work and tool making, are also present.
Amongst the long term aims are the encouraging and development of new glass workshops for the 21st century. Further objectives of the Foundation are the supporting of research and written studies, with special emphasis on developing the history of glass, the discovery of the characteristics and interrelationships of Hungarian and European glass culture, its roots in ethnography and sociology, its relation to associated trades and the exploration of mutual influences. Relying on associated trades and on their representatives who are members, the aim of the Foundation is the constant renewal of glass art and the widening of its opportunities and framework, through the learning and practice of traditional glass craft as outlined above; the support of artists in the form of scholarships and in the provision of workshops. Finally, other aims of the Foundation are the organization of symposiums and exhibitions and teaching, thus handing on the knowledge we have gained, supporting the study of glass craft and glass art, organizing craft camps, research trips in Hungary and abroad and especially making contacts in glass crafts.
These are the aims of the Blaze Mine Glass Art Foundation.
The membership does not only consist of glass artists, but also includes sculptors, painters and applied artists who like to work with glass.