Art on Fire Celebration + Auction
9/18/2026 | 6:00 PM - 11:00 PM
Art on Fire Celebration + Auction • Friday, September 18 | 6-11pm
Honorary Artist Amber Cowan • Chairs The Fleischner Family—Leslie, Chris, Dawn, Andrew, and Kay
Pittsburgh Glass Center
5472 Penn Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15206 | Complimentary valet
Art on Fire is an unforgettable evening—filled with incredible art, live glassmaking, and a community of people who believe in the importance of creativity and access to the arts.
All proceeds from the event support free public programs, scholarships, youth outreach, and artist residencies that bring renowned artists from around the world to Pittsburgh.
Pittsburgh’s Only Glass Art Auction
Art on Fire is a great opportunity to buy handmade, one-of-a-kind glass art while also supporting artists and Pittsburgh Glass Center. Over 150 handmade glass works by local and internationally renowned glass artists will be included in the live and silent auctions.
About our featured artist AMBER COWAN
Amber Cowan’s sculptural glasswork is based around the use of recycled, upcycled, and second-life American pressed glass. She uses the process of flameworking, hot-sculpting and glassblowing to create large-scale sculptures that overwhelm the viewer with ornate abstraction and viral accrual. With an instinctive nature towards horror vacui, her pieces reference memory, domesticity and the loss of an industry through the re-use of common items from the aesthetic dustbin of American design. The primary material used for her work is glass cullet sourced from scrap yards supplied by now defunct pressed glass factories as well as flea-markets, antique-stores and donations of broken antiques from households across the country.
Her recent diorama-style pieces tell stories of self-discovery, escapism and the power of the feminine by utilizing figurines and animals found in collected antique glass pieces. These figurines become recurring symbols in the evolving narrative and simultaneously pay homage to the history of US glassmaking.
Cowan lives and works in Philadelphia where she received an MFA in Ceramics/Glass from Tyler School of Art and Architecture of Temple University. She was the recipient of the 2014 Rakow Commission from The Corning Museum of Glass and her work can be found in the permanent collection of The Museum of Art and Design in New York, The Toledo Museum of Art, and The RISD Museum.
When you join Art on Fire in person or bid from home, you directly support artists and programs that embody PGC’s mission to support glass artists and teach, create, and promote glass art.
Pittsburgh Glass Center is wheelchair accessible. A sign language interpreter is provided.
Please contact accessibility@pittsburghglasscenter.org with any accessibility concerns.
