Dante Marioni Glass at The Tacoma Art Museum

Dante Marioni (born March 3, 1964 in

Mill Valley, California Mill Valley is a city in Marin County, California, Marin County, California, United States, located about north of San Francisco via the Golden Gate Bridge and from Napa Valley. The population was 14,231 at the 2020 United States Census, 2020 ...

) is an American

glass Glass is a non-crystalline, often transparent, amorphous solid that has widespread practical, technological, and decorative use in, for example, window panes, tableware, and optics. Glass is most often formed by rapid cooling (quenching) of ...

artist An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse refers to a practitioner in the visual arts only. However, th ...

Biography

Dante Marioni grew up among many artistic influences. His father,

Paul Marioni Paul Marioni (b. 1941 Cincinnati, Ohio) is an American artist who works in the medium of glass. Biography Marioni graduated from the University of Cincinnati in 1967 with a degree in philosophy. He became a filmmaker, then started working with ...

, was involved in the American studio glass movement and, as a result, Dante was constantly exposed to the

glassblowing Glassblowing is a glassforming technique that involves inflating molten glass into a bubble (or parison) with the aid of a Blowpipe (tool), blowpipe (or blow tube). A person who blows glass is called a ''glassblower'', ''glassmith'', or ''gaffer'' ...

artists of the San Francisco Bay Area. His uncles are artists,

Tom Marioni Tom Marioni (born 1937, Cincinnati, Ohio, United States) is an American artist and educator, known for his conceptual artwork. Marioni was active in the emergence of Conceptual Art movement in the 1960s. He founded the Museum of Conceptual Art ( ...

and Joseph Marioni. In 1979, the Marioni family moved to

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

and Dante began to study glassblowing at The Glass Eye. He spent summers at the

Pilchuck Glass School Pilchuck Glass School is an international center for glass art education. The school was founded in 1971 by Dale Chihuly, Anne Gould Hauberg (1917-2016), and John H Hauberg (1916-2002). The campus is located on a former tree farm in Stanwood, Wa ...

Stanwood, Washington Stanwood is a city in Snohomish County, Washington, United States. The city is located north of Seattle, at the mouth of the Stillaguamish River near Camano Island. As of the 2010 census, its population is 6,231. Stanwood was founded in 1866 ...

where his father taught. After graduating from high school, he started to pursue glassblowing as a career; working full-time at The Glass Eye. Marioni learned the art of glassblowing from masters like

Lino Tagliapietra Lino Tagliapietra (born 1934) is an Italian glass artist originally from Venice, who has also worked extensively in the United States. As a teacher and mentor, he has played a key role in the international exchange of glassblowing processes and tec ...

, Benjamin Moore, and

Richard Marquis Richard "Dick" Marquis (born 1945) is an American studio glass artist. One of the first Americans ever to work in a Venetian glass factory, he became a master of Venetian cane and murrine techniques. He is considered a pioneer of American conte ...

. He has taught in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

, and

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

About his work

Marioni’s ensemble of glass vessels includes variations of

vases A vase ( or ) is an open container. It can be made from a number of materials, such as ceramics, glass, non-rusting metals, such as aluminium, brass, bronze, or stainless steel. Even wood has been used to make vases, either by using tree species ...

goblet A chalice (from Latin 'mug', borrowed from Ancient Greek () 'cup') or goblet is a footed cup intended to hold a drink. In religious practice, a chalice is often used for drinking during a ceremony or may carry a certain symbolic meaning. Re ...

s, flasks, cups, and

pitcher In baseball, the pitcher is the player who throws ("pitches") the baseball from the pitcher's mound toward the catcher to begin each play, with the goal of retiring a batter, who attempts to either make contact with the pitched ball or draw ...

s. His works reveal combinations of

classical Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...

, and modern forms using

opaque Opacity or opaque may refer to: * Impediments to (especially, visible) light: ** Opacities, absorption coefficients ** Opacity (optics), property or degree of blocking the transmission of light * Metaphors derived from literal optics: ** In lingu ...

and

transparent Transparency, transparence or transparent most often refer to: * Transparency (optics), the physical property of allowing the transmission of light through a material They may also refer to: Literal uses * Transparency (photography), a still, ...

color Color (American English) or colour (British English) is the visual perceptual property deriving from the spectrum of light interacting with the photoreceptor cells of the eyes. Color categories and physical specifications of color are associ ...

s. Some of Marioni’s pieces employ 'reticello', which resembles a net, and

murrine Murrine (singular: murrina) are colored patterns or images made in a glass cane that are revealed when the cane is cut into thin cross-sections. Murrine can be made in infinite designs from simple circular or square patterns to complex detailed ...

(mosaic) techniques. As he has refined his technical skills, he tends to design with tall, sleek shapes.(see external link below)

References

Bibliography

Oldknow, Tina. ''Dante Marioni: Blown Glass''. New York: Hudson Hills Press, 2000. .

External links

Dante Marioni Glass

{{DEFAULTSORT:Marioni, Dante 1964 births Living people American glass artists American contemporary artists Glassblowers Pacific Northwest artists Fellows of the American Craft Council