Michael Janis

Background

About Michael Janis

I developed a focus on glass after working for twenty years as an architect in the United States and Australia. Now Co-Director of the Washington Glass School, I have taught and/or lectured at the Penland School of Crafts, The Pittsburgh Glass Center, California's Bay Area Glass Institute, Cleveland Institute of Art, The Glass Furnace (Istanbul, Turkey) and the UK's National Glass Centre at the University of Sunderland. My artwork has been shown at major galleries and international art fairs and is included in the permanent collection of the Massachusetts’ Fuller Craft Museum, Florida’s Imagine Museum, Indiana’s Fort Wayne Museum of Art and the Art Institute of Chicago. In 2011, I had a solo exhibition of my glass artwork at the Fuller Craft Museum (Massachusetts), and was named a "Rising Star" by the Creative Glass Center of America and The Art Alliance for Contemporary Glass (AACG). Glass Art Magazine featured my work as their May/June 2012 cover story. In 2013, American Craft Magazine's April/May issue featured my work in a multi-page profile. The June/July issue of American Craft Magazine features a review of one of the Washington Glass Studio's Public Art projects, the new cast glass doors for the US Library of Congress Adams Building. The James Renwick Alliance have named me "Distinguished Artist 2013/2014", and I presented my work at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in May of 2014. Awarded a Fulbright Scholarship in 2012, I went to England's University of Sunderland and taught at the UK's National Glass Centre and while there I was an Artist-in-Residence at the Institute for International Research in Glass (IIRG). The DC Commission on the Arts & Humanities (DCCAH) awarded me an Artist Fellowship in 2014, 2015 and 2016. In September 2016, I was awarded the 31st Annual Mayor's Arts Awards for "Excellence in the Arts". A collaborative sculpture, made with artists Tim Tate & Chris Shea, was part of Berengo Studio’s Glasstress Exhibition at the 2022 Venice Biennale, now on permanent display in Murano, IT.