AMBASSADOR GLASS IS MORE!
Mare Saare, Estonia


Artists who have chosen glass as their favourite medium, in Estonia as well as in the other Baltic countries – Latvia and Lithuania – often choose to leave aside the functionality of glassware and dedicate themselves to the conceptual and artistic scope, approaching glass as a canvas, as the purest material for sculpturing, even as the source of music and inspiration for words. Therefore the landscape of glass in these countries is multifaceted and interesting, constantly developing in several directions including functional glass design and unique creations. Glancing backwards into the history of these countries, this development may be contemplated as a sudden leap into the freedom of expression, knowledge and notoriety since the beginning of the 1990s.
The transparent, transcendent glass seems to have the ability to bind together different people, proved by the relations and network existing in the international world of glass. It is the special mission and responsibility of the ambassadors of Glass is more! to keep the flow of news and information about the international glass community going.

Mare Saare is professor for glass and, since 1993, head of the department of glass at the Estonian Academy of Arts, Tallinn, Estonia. She has also been invited as a teacher and artist-in-residence to numerous institutions from Corning, USA, and Seto, Japan, to the Eisch Factory in Frauenau, Germany and several European countries. She has participated in numerous exhibitions in Estonia and abroad, curated several glass exhibitions, published books and catalogues in www.blurb.com.
In her creative work Mare is like a traveller who – with open heart and mind – is constantly breaking new grounds, trying to comprehend the essence of the world, seeking artistic solutions to the dilemma of the world’s finiteness or infiniteness, usually through the medium of glass. Her works attempt to call attention to the frailty of the world and simultaneously remind us of the timeless circle of nature.