We are pleased to announce that Christen Baker, Marta Byrdziak, and Silver (Eunhyung) Kim have been selected as the 2026 MacPherson-Wortley Emerging Artists. This prestigious, juried competition recognizes and provides critical investment in rising talent in the global glass community. Generously supported by Nancy and Roger MacPherson and Barbara and Richard Wortley, this award comes with a dedicated lecture slot at the Annual GAS Conference, a residency at the Chrysler Museum of Art, a digital exhibition, and a stipend–all vital ways to help an emerging artist’s career blossom.
“The creativity and innovation displayed in the work of this year’s MacPherson-Wortley Emerging Artists is remarkable,” said Brandi P. Clark, GAS Executive Director + CEO. “Each artist shows a commitment to pushing the boundaries of what is possible in glass, and their voices show clearly in their work, showcasing what the next generation of glass is capable of achieving. We thank the MacPhersons and Wortleys for their visionary support of emerging artists and for this year’s jurors for their thoughtful approach to the jurying process.”
Christen Baker is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice is grounded in glass. Her work uses glass as a site of translation, moving from digital capture into physical making to examine how environments are shaped by mediation and systems of visibility. Using photography, 3D scanning, and image extraction, she produces glass and neon works that generate physical and tactile forms of data. Her work has been exhibited at the Museum of Craft and Design (San Francisco), UrbanGlass (Brooklyn), and Crane Arts (Philadelphia). She lives and works in Indianapolis and is a Long-Term Artist-in-Residence at the Contemporary Art Museum of Indianapolis (CAMi).
Artist Statement: My work uses glass as a material of translation, moving between digital capture and physical form to explore how attention is shaped by contemporary systems of mediation. I am drawn to moments where intuition and observation meet, and where perception is filtered through screens, data, and infrastructures that alter our experience of time, space, and environmental reality.
I create installations, sculptures, and digital works that examine how environments are recorded and reassembled. Using tools such as 3D scanning, LiDAR, and image extraction, I engage built and natural sites through fragmented spatial information. This material circulates between digital and physical processes, maintaining tension between what is technologically recorded and what is physically sensed.
Glass, light, and neon are central to my practice. Glass acts as a participant within the work, carrying material behaviors that shape how digital and physical infrastructure organizes visibility, access, and neglect. Transparency, moulding, reflection, refraction, and reuse ; Its utility as a functional and infrastructural material, alongside its capacity to distort and redirect perception, makes it central to my interest in attention and mediation. In my sculptural work, cast glass appears as asphalt or concrete, while hot sculpted glass takes the form of grass emerging from cracks and seams. These gestures point to sites of infrastructural strain and persistence. Many of the grass forms are made from recycled or forgotten glass once meant for disposal.
Neon functions architecturally, integrated into built space or outlining hierarchies of visual information. Motion sensors sometimes activate these elements, making visibility conditional and drawing attention to how observation and control operate within everyday environments.
Marta Byrdziak was born and raised in Straconka (Bielsko-Biała), Poland during the golden era of post-communism. In 2016, she received a bachelor’s degree in glass from the Academy of Fine Arts in Wroclaw. After graduating, she travelled to various glass studios across the United States and Europe, completing internships at UrbanGlass, Gather Glass, and STARWorks. Since February 2018, she has been a vital part of Gent Glas (Belgium). She has demonstrated at both Virtual GAS Conferences (2020 and 2021), demonstrated hot sculpting techniques in Tacoma (2022), and took part in the collaborative demonstration, Iconic Yonic, in Detroit (2023).
Artist Statement: In my artistic practice, I explore and utilize women’s experiences, both present and past, drawing inspiration from mythology, history and religion. I am interested in how the concept of a woman’s role in society has evolved throughout history, from paganism to Christianity through to modern times. I strive to empower women, challenge traditional gender roles, and spark social discussion about the economic and social benefits of gender equality. Through my work, I seek to openly discuss with the viewer, and encourage them to question traditional and modern aspects of gender roles.
My work serves as a way to reclaim women’s power, bodies, and sense of agency. In a world that remains predominantly male-centric, I often use human genitalia to symbolize individual identity, highlighting how gender is often reduced to physical attributes. In my work I elevate genitalia to symbols of beauty and nature, emphasizing their significance beyond societal taboos. Human sexuality is a complex language and system of expression, an inherent part of human experience which extends beyond means of reproduction.
I believe that art creates room for conversation between those who may not understand each other due to their different upbringings. I believe art is a place where those with fundamentally different beliefs have room for dialogue and celebrate the diversity of human identity and sexuality.
Silver (Eunhyung) Kim is a Korean-born glass artist based in the United States. Her interdisciplinary practice integrates glass, video, and installation to examine Korean cultural identity, food rituals, and collective memory shaped by modern history. She holds an MFA from Rochester Institute of Technology and has exhibited internationally, including at Prague Castle, Pittsburgh Glass Center, and UrbanGlass. Her work is recognized for its conceptual use of glass as a narrative and cultural medium. She currently works at Pittsburgh Glass Center as a technician and instructor, supporting both studio production and educational initiatives.
Artist Statement: My work investigates contemporary social phenomena through visual documentation. I approach my practice as a recorder of the present, translating ongoing events, collective behaviors, and subtle social tensions into material and spatial forms. I believe that documentation is not passive observation, but an active engagement with history; what is recorded today shapes how the future understands our time.
Having grown up in Korea—a society formed through rapid transformation after colonialism and war—I am attentive to how historical experiences continue to surface in everyday life. While Korean culture is now widely visible on a global stage, its deeper sensibilities often exist beneath recognizable forms. My work focuses on these less-visible layers, capturing moments where history, humor, and contemporary life intersect.
I often draw from haehak, a form of Korean humor that allows critique to coexist with empathy. Through ordinary yet symbolic elements such as communal dining, habitual gestures, and shared spaces, I explore how social values are maintained, negotiated, or quietly challenged. These scenes function as fragments of a living archive rather than fixed narratives.
Glass is my primary material due to its transparency and fragility, which allow me to control perception and articulate the unstable conditions of the present. I also work with video and installation to construct situations that may not exist in reality, expanding the conditions of observation. My works range from static objects to interactive environments, inviting viewers to reconsider their relationship to the social space they inhabit.
Thank you to our donors and jurors for making the 2026 MacPherson-Wortley Emerging Artist Award possible:
