Review

"Wave Bowl", Blown Glass.

AlBo Glass

10 a.m.-6 p.m.

Phoenix Gallery
919 Massachusetts St.
Lawrence, KS
785.843.0080

Hours: 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday-Wednesday, 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Thursday, 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Friday-Saturday, noon-5 p.m. Sunday
Runs through: Dec. 31.

Artist’s site: http://www.alboglass.com

Gallery site: http://www.phoenixgallery.biz

Four days from the end of the year, and this is only the second "collective" (translation: a body of work created by more than two artists) post for ARTKC365. Shows you how rare this sort of thing is.

Creation by committee can be a train wreck ... but when it works, when each creator's vision is in line with the others', it really works.

That's the case with Topeka-based AlBo Glass, which is featured this month at Lawrence's artisan-centric Phoenix Gallery.

A two-woman family concern when it was established almost 20 years ago, it has survived the death of one co-founder and its legacy now includes not only the Sheafor family — Doug Sheafor and his children Bram, Nathan (a former Olympic cyclist) and co-founder Alison — but also current associates Laura Engelhardt, Joyce Knott and Lynn Wilson.

(Doug's wife, Bo, passed away in 2006. Their children no longer live in Topeka but maintain close ties with the family firm. As the company's Web site puts it, Though we each have full time jobs and we live far apart, we are drawn together by our love for each other and the art that singes arm hairs.)

AlBo Glass' art is far easier on the eyes than on its creators' arms. The wave bowl pictured above is more than a functional decoration. It's a model of flowing lines and graceful curves ... proof that the utilitarian doesn't have to be boring, and that the "art" in "artisan" belongs there.

It's also proof that when a shared vision is worth following, nothing — not decades, not distance, not even death — can get in its way.