Klaus Moje

Art Brokerage: Klaus Moje German/Australian Glass Artist: Klaus Moje was born in 1936 in Germany to a family of glass workers who specialized in providing bevelled and decorated glass for things such as mirrors and shelving. Moje became a journeyman glass cutter and worked in his family's shop until he received a scholarship to study glass art in Rheinbach and then in Hadamar. After a brief time as a German folk singer, Moje opened a stained glass studio with Isgard Moje-Wohlgemuth. Moje made his first entry into the glass art world with carved and polished glass sculptures. Although these pieces garnered him quite a bit of attention, he abandoned the cut glass work when he discovered a caché of colorful glass canes that were used to make buttons for the garment industry. Around the year 1975, Moje began cutting the rods into thin wafers or strips and fusing them together in a kiln. The pieces would then be cut again and refused to create rhythmic patterns of vibrant color. In 1976, Moje returned to Hamburg after a short time living in Danzinger Strasse. Moje became a founding member of Galerie der Kunsthandwerker and in 1978 through 1982 he was a member of the Jury of Arbeitsgemeinschaft des Deutschen Kunsthandwerks. Meanwhile, Moje continued working with the glass rods. The process was fraught with failure caused by the material. Many of the glass colors were incompatible with each other, causing the work to break in the kiln or even after the firing process had finished. The work that did survive was often heavily devitrified. Moje's background as a glass cutter came to the fore as he had to carve away the contaminated surface in order to reveal the color he desired. In 1979, Moje was invited to be a guest lecturer at the Pilchuck Glass School in Stanwood, Washington. The school, started by Dale Chihuly, was geared mainly toward glassblowing, but Moje gave a talk about his recent fused glass works. He discussed the issues he was having with the material and lamented the fact that the factory that had been making the rods was planning to cease production when the master who knew the formula to make them retired. Moje was looking for a glass manufacturer that could make a wide palette of colored glass but also help with the incompatibility and devitrification problems that he was experiencing. One of his students at Pilchuck was Boyce Lundstrom. Listings wanted by Art Brokerage.