The Annual Members Exhibition by the Scottish Glass Society
Wednesday, 17th September to Wednesday, 24th September 2025
Private View / Opening on Tuesday, 16th September 2025 at 6 pm
Held at the Trades Hall, Glasgow
Closing date for Submissions Thursday, 31st July 2025 5pm
This year’s Scottish Glass Society (SGS) annual exhibition has the theme of ‘Alchemy’. The exhibition delves into the intricate and transformative process of glassmaking through the lens of alchemy. This exhibition will invite visitors to discover the mysterious and complex world behind the creation of glass artworks, exploring its materiality and the delicate balance between science, artistry, and craftsmanship.
Today ‘Alchemy’ is labelled as a pseudoscience. In the past it was a chemical science and speculative philosophy where the alchemist’s skill was celebrated for their ability to transform things into something better.
In the exhibition, glass will be presented not merely as a medium, but as a living puzzle, where each piece represents the culmination of skill, intuition, and the alchemical process of transformation. Just as alchemists of the past sought to transmute base elements into gold, contemporary glass artists manipulate raw materials into extraordinary forms that challenge our understanding of what glass can be.
The exhibition brings together contemporary glass artists who harness the materials fluidity, fragility, and resilience to explore themes of experimentation, materiality, and metamorphosis.
We hope the exhibition will contain as wide a wide a range of glass making techniques as possible. We challenge glass practitioners to create glass artworks that reveal the layers of difficulty, technique, patience, and precision involved in our craft.
Those of us that choose to work with glass, like the alchemists, use our craftsmanship and knowledge to shape unwieldy materials and solve the puzzle of making.
Criteria:
- The exhibition is non-juried and open to all members of SGS.
- Entrants must be paid up members of the SGS
- Work must comprise of at least 60% medium of glass.
- Work submitted for consideration must have been made after 1st January 2022.
- All submitted artwork should be for sale.
- There will be a commission of 30% on sales and you should reflect this in the price of your artwork for sale.
- The artist must complete all points included in the application form.
- Artists may submit up to three pieces of work, taking into account that all artists must be equally represented within the exhibition.
- Work must be resilient to both heat and light as it is not possible to control environmental factors in the venue.
- The work must be available from 13th September until 5th October 2025 to allow time to unpack, install, show, pack and return work during the period of the exhibition.
- Note works will only be excepted if they displayed by:
- Freestanding on the floor.
- Freestanding on a plinth.
- Hung from a picture rail cable system. Example of Picture Rail Cable System
- Please indicate if you can provide your own plinth or other freestanding mounting arrangement.
Fees / Selling:
- The applicant entry fee is £40 for members and £20 for student members. This entry fee entitles applicants to submit a maximum of three entries.
- There will be an additional fee of £15 if the applicant is unable to invigilate during the exhibition opening. This will be charged separately once an artist has been accepted.
- Non-members wishing to submit are welcome but must join the SGS prior to submitting an exhibition application. Join the SGS online: Join SGS – Scottish Glass Society
- SGS will take a commission of 30% on retail / displayed price on art work sales
- These charges are to cover the administration costs of the exhibition and will fund the use of the venue, signage, advertising and events to promote the exhibitions.
- All pieces exhibited will be for sale. Your wholesale price must include VAT if you are registered for VAT.
- SGS will send a sales overview to the artist for you to create an invoice. Payment will follow within 14 days of invoice.
Logistics:
- Volunteers from SGS will install, curate and de-install the exhibition.
- Our aim is to include as many entries as possible, subject to space limitations at the venue. Consequently, not all work entered may necessarily be exhibited. Any selection will be based on the number of applications received and the need to represent as many artists as possible.
- Supervision of the space is provided by exhibiting artists during opening hours, you are required to invigilate for a half day or pay an additional fee of £15. Those who are unable to invigilate will be invoiced separately.
- A Doodle poll or similar online tool will be used for managing invigilation.
Location / Dates:
- The exhibition will again be held in the Trades Hall, 85 Glassford St, Merchant City, Glasgow G1 1UH.
- The exhibition will again coincide the Glasgow ‘Doors Open’ weekend.
- The exhibition will run from Wednesday, 17th September to Wednesday, 24th September 2025.
- The Private View / Opening on Tuesday, 16th September 2025 at 6pm.
- CLOSING DATE FOR APPLICATIONS: Thursday, 31st July @ 5pm.
Marketing and Publicity:
The SGS will market the exhibition through its normal channels and using Artmag. Please ensure that all images you send are available for us to use for publicity and that you have copyright. If the artist does not have copyright please provide the name of the photographer who will be credited accordingly. Images should be no larger than 4MB.
Insurance:
- Exhibit, public liability (PL) and Products Liability (PPL) insurance cover are NOT provided by either venue or SGS for temporary exhibitions. Each artist must ensure they have their own public liability insurance cover to exhibit in public spaces. This must be confirmed on the attached application form.
- For information, both the Artist Network https://www.a-n.co.uk/ and Scottish Artists Union http://www.sau.org.uk/ currently include PL and PPL as part of their membership.
- No responsibility can be accepted by the venue for any damage incurred to exhibits whilst on the premises either on display or in storage nor during transit.
Packaging and Transport:
- Each artist selected for inclusion in the exhibition must deliver their work to the Trades Hall, Glasgow.
- Collection of the work at the end of the exhibition must be from Trades Hall or by individual arrangement with the SGS Secretary Catherine Lowe.
- Each artist selected for inclusion in the exhibition must either collect their unsold work from Trades Hall, Glasgow; or from WASPS, 77 Hanson Street, Glasgow.
- If the artist cannot collect in person, the artist must arrange for collection by a courier. In the case of work returned overseas it is the responsibility of the artist to ensure all customs documentation is correct and available. It is the responsibility of the artist to provide their courier with all necessary documentation for the return of their work through customs to the Country of origin.
- All work returned to artists will be at the artist’s own expense. It will be the responsibility of the artists to insure work during transportation.
- If your work is to be returned by courier, please note the dimensions and weight of your parcel prior to dispatch to the exhibition so that you can provide this information to arrange collection of your work. We will be unable to provide this information to you.
- With any work being sent from overseas, all import costs and customs duties, plus negotiations with customs etc are the sole responsibilities of the artist.
- A delivery note must be included with the work and work is to be labelled. The Delivery Note is to include your name, title of work and wholesale (Artist) price. Please use the Delivery Note will be forwarded to you if your work is accepted for the exhibition.
- When work is delivered to the venue, it must be well packaged. Your packaging will be retained and used to return your work to you. Please attach a label to your packaging which must include your name and a small image of your piece/s and sizes.
- All work must be clean and damage free ready to hang / display.
Contact:
- Any questions please contact: sgssecretary@hotmail.co.uk
Exhibition Application Form Link – to follow
Photo Credit: “Brittle Viscosity” Gregory Alliss (Photo; Shannon Tofts)
