Kevin
Kutch and Mary Ellen Buxton's partnership began at Metropolitan
State Collage in Denver, where Kevin received his BA
in sculpture in 1977 and Mary Ellen hers in Printmaking
and Art Education in 1976. By 1978 they had married
but both chose to pursue separate careers in the arts.
As manager of Blake St. Glass, the Denver studio of
artists Kit Karbler and Michael David, Kevin directed
his sculptural skills toward mastering cold-glass technology
and learning glassblowing. His sculptures combining
glass, cold-glass technology and metals were displayed
in a number of regional exhibits. Mary Ellen went on
to employ her artistic abilities as a teaching artist
by developing and implementing an arts curriculum in
the Adams County #12 School District Alternative school
for disenfranchised students. Meanwhile, she indulged
her interests in handmade paper as a print form, weaving
and wearable wool felt. Her
multi-media
wall relief's combining these elements saw considerable
regional and national exposure.
The Buxton-Kutches moved from Colorado to New York City
in 1991, when Kevin accepted an invitation from the
New York Experimental Glass Workshop (now Urban Glass)
to be its new studio director. He worked there with
some of the world's leading glass artists - Dale Chihuly,
Richard Marquis, Lino Tagliapietra, Dante Marioni and
Bertil VaRien among them - and oversaw NYEGW's move
to it's new Brooklyn home. His responsibilities included
training scheduling personnel and managing the 17,000sq/ft.
open-door facility as well as organizing special events
and public demonstrations with the artists. Mary Ellen
continued her teaching at Parsons School of Design,
Horizons Craft Program, Brookfield Craft Center and
the New York Public Schools' Manhattan Village Academy
while
managing the Flickinger Glassworks; a custom glass bending
(slumping) firm in Brooklyn.
The ultimate partnership was cemented in May of 1994,
when Kevin and Mary Ellen proudly opened a studio of
their own, joining other pioneering young artists along
the decaying Red Hook waterfront of Brooklyn. Here,
at the studio, they design and blow thick-walled, multi
colored, multiple-bubbled functional glass sculpture.
Theirs is essentially a liquid medium and excellent
one for discovery. Through it artist and viewer alike
can enjoy exploring the all-too-human fascination with
light and color. With deceptively simple designs, Kevin
and Mary Ellen bend light and manipulate perception
in fine glass sculpture. Their works are featured in
national galleries, exhibitions and private and public
collections.
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