Idea Furnace Retrospective
October 3, 2025 – January 19, 2026
Free Opening Reception October 3, 6–9pm
Many ideas have been fired up in the studios at Pittsburgh Glass Center since the Idea Furnace program started in 2012. Nearly 60 artists have participated in this experimental design program that connects non-glass artists with glass artists and encourages exploration in other art forms. The Idea Furnace Retrospective is the second iteration of this exhibition that showcases the work of 6 artists of other mediums who participated in the Idea Furnace program and were inspired by glass. Featured artists:
Renee Cox
Sean Derry
Wade Kramm
Erin Mallea
Mary Martin
Alisha B. Wormsley
About the Artists
Renee Cox
One of the most influential living black photographers working today, Renee Cox’s works have inspired a generation. Her images are as fearless as they are iconic, trailblazing the path for women and those of colour to follow. Her formidable shadow looms large over the contemporary art world; studied in universities, and heavily featured in art history courses. Cox herself is at the forefront of the academic conversation, assuming the role of Adjunct Professor at NYU, a role she proudly held for two years. Cox has also taught at Columbia University and as a critic at Yale.
Sean Derry
Sean Derry’s work includes installations and participatory projects. Through his installations, Sean seeks to affirm the importance of resilience at a moment of increasing cultural conflict and ongoing environmental damage. He has exhibited his work in solo exhibitions at the Arlington Arts Center, Gallery 709, Das Klohäuschen, Goggleworks Center for the Arts, The Sculpture Center, and the International Gallery of Contemporary Art among other venues. Sean’s participatory public projects explore the lived experience of a place and investigate alternative strategies for inhabiting these environments. Sean is the co-founder of Alloy Pittsburgh, a recurring, site-based temporary exhibition at the Carrie Furnaces National Historic Landmark; and Local X Change, a non-profit organization that prioritizes collaboration and civic engagement as a tactic to build agency and strengthen communities.
Wade Kramm
Wade Kramm is an installation artist based in New York and Pittsburgh. He has received multiple grants, including the Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant, The Rhode Island State Council for the Arts and an Artist Resource Trust Grant.
His work has been been exhibited at: Catskill Art Space, (Livingston Manor, NY) Cue Art Foundation (New York, NY), Odetta Gallery (Brooklyn, NY), Space 776 (Brooklyn, NY), Sammer Gallery (New York, NY), Concept Gallery (Pittsburgh, PA), Esther M. Klein Art Gallery (Philadelphia, PA); Athens Contemporary Museum of Art (Athens, GA) Piero Atchugarry Gallery (Pueblo Garzón, Uruguay), Tapir Gallery (Berlin, Germany), Chicago (Chicago, IL), and Art Project Fair (Verona, Italy). Kramm received his M.F.A. in sculpture at the Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI.
Erin Mallea
Erin Mallea is an artist working across sculpture, video, photography and print publications exploring place as an entry point into larger social, political, and environmental conditions. Across media, her process is often grounded in place-based research and partnerships outside of art spaces. She has worked with biologists, anthropologists, environmental justice activists and more to develop publications, collaborative projects, and layered, time-based installations. Her work collapses personal, natural, and national history to scrutinize cultural relationships to land, place, and time.
Mary Martin is a multidisciplinary African American visual artist based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Trained in both Architecture and Fine Arts at the Rhode Island School of Design, Martin’s studio practice includes ceramics, collage, printmaking, metals, and glass. Her work explores the interplay between structure and ornament, often merging functional and sculptural forms. She is known for her intricately carved surfaces and use of linear patterning that echo cultural memory, spirituality, and the geometry of ancestral design.
Martin’s vessels and mixed media works embody a language of form and surface that bridges architectural sensibility with the handmade, offering tactile narratives rooted in identity and cultural lineage. Her aesthetic is informed by both West African visual traditions and her lived experience as a Black woman navigating urban and spiritual landscapes.
In all aspects of her practice, Martin creates with an ethos of reverence—for craft, for history, and for the communities her work serves to uplift and reflect.
Alisha B. Wormsley
Alisha B. Wormsley is an interdisciplinary artist and cultural producer. Wormsley’s work is dedicated to the expansion and creation of time and space and the rematriation of Black/Indigenous Matriarch. Alisha is a mother, and founder of Sibyls Shrine, an arts collective and residency program for Black artists who M/other. Sibyls Shrine and her project, There Are Black People In The Future, both focus on the redistribution of resources and reimagination and rematriation of Black and Indigenous futures.
About the Idea Furnace
The Idea Furnace is an experimental design program to connect non-glass artists with glass artists and encourage exploration in other art forms.
Jason Forck, Director of Creative Projects, created the program to bridge the gap between glass and other art and design media. “We want to educate artists about glass, give them access to the material and help them advance their ideas,” he said.
Launched in 2012, Idea Furnace grew out of a 2011 residency at PGC with Gwylene Gallimard and Jean Marie Mauclet. They had extensive architectural ideas for their exhibition “Ten More Years on Penn,” but had no glass experience. They worked with artists at PGC and challenged them to create structures that had never been created before. The result was a 7-foot glass bridge.
Learn how to apply for the Idea Furnace
See images from the first Idea Furnace Retrospective exhibition in 2019
Sibyls Shrine
Artists Renee Cox, Mary Martin, and Alisha B. Wormsley participated in the Idea Furnace through a special partnership with Sibyls Shrine.
Sibyls Shrine is a network of Black artists who m/other in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania— and beyond. We are an art collective and residency program rooted in our own radical care, rest and support.
Sibyls Shrine is a homage to the Sibyls, the original priestesses of the African goddess Mami Wata. The term was used to name the divine status, quality, and nature of the matriarchal guardians. Our program is motivated by a similar goal: uplifting Black artists who m/other with opportunities to further develop their craft and presence in the art world.
We provide artists in our network with opportunities to rest, unrestricted financial support, career development, skill-sharing, access to arts and cultural institutions, free classes and workshops, exhibition and speaking opportunities, support for self care, childcare and other daily needs— Sibyls Shrine has created a resource framework that directly addresses this intersectionality and many of the systemic and structural factors that continue to oppress Black artists who m/other.
We now support 150+ members across 19 states and 26 cities. We have partnerships with 16 local, regional and national organizations to provide extensive resources and support to Network members. Since 2020, we have curated 11 exhibitions, 32 residencies, and 80 public programs all led by members of the Sibyls Shrine Network.
Sibyls Shrine was created in 2019 by Alisha B Wormsley, developed with Jessica Gaynelle Moss, in partnership with Shiftworks Community + Public Arts. Learn more at www.sibylsshrine.com.
