Shaffer Wins USA Recognition
Friday, January 29th, 2010 by Liisa Silander
Great news for glass artist Mary Shaffer ’65 IL: she’s one of 50 people nationwide to win a United States Artists (USA) Fellowship for 2009. The USA Fellows program awards unrestricted grants of $50,000 each to artists from all disciplines and at all ages and stages of their careers.
Mary pioneered the art of slumped glass – a process she appropriated from the auto industry and made her own since falling in love with the medium in the late ’60s. Though RISD’s glass program didn’t get off the ground until a few years after she graduated from Illustration, she picked up everything she could about glass by hanging around the hot new hot shop and learning from gurus like Dale Chihuly MFA ’68 CR and Fritz Dreisbach.
Recognized for the caliber and impact of their work, the most recent USA winners were were announced in December at an awards ceremony in Santa Monica. Alumni Tanya Aguiñiga MFA ’05 FD and Liz Collins ’91 TX/MFA ’99 (who’s also an assistant professor of Textiles at RISD) won USA Fellowships in 2006.







RISD mourns the loss of Foundation Studies 

