Year in review: Seaweed Glass Artist Dana Arbib spent parts of lockdown in Venice, Italy, working with master glass artisans in Murano to create a series of works inspired by the shapes, colors and textures of seaweed found in the Venetian canals during an empty summer. The result was a series of large-scale glass vessels—slimy green, to rich velvet emerald and black—that somehow felt both ancient and contemporary. For Dana’s first solo show in May, Vetro Alga—literally meaning “seaweed glass” in Italian, I asked designer Michael Bargo if he would be happy to show the works in his beautiful apartment in Lower Manhattan. I’ve long-admired Michael’s sensibility and felt that Dana’s work would compliment the furniture and objects in Michael’s own home; the resulting show felt human in scale and observation, and allowed the stories of Michael and of Dana to be told in unison. We opened the show with an intimate dinner celebrating dishes that relate to Dana’s Libyan, Venetian and Israeli heritages, cooked by Jeremiah Stone (@chefjeremiahstone); Dana made the plates and glasses that guests used for the meal. Dana is currently working on her second body of work—this time inspired by the shapes of things that grow out of the ground rather than out of water. We are also planning to document more of Dana’s process as she dives deeper into the glass blowing culture of Murano. Both Dana and I are united by our common Venetian heritage —her, through a three-times great uncle who practiced glass blowing in the city, and me through my father’s direct lineage of Venetian artists—which has created an interesting dialogue for her work, and a lot of excitement for future projects. Thank you to both Dana and Michael for making Vetro Alga such an interesting and curious little exhibition. @michaelbargo @dana.yolanda.arbib Images by @brianwferry