Tryon Arts & Crafts School announces the exhibition Ascension by Jennifer Bueno, Kit Paulson, and Kimberly Thomas, which will run from January 13 through February 15, 2026. The exhibit coincides with the school’s annual fused glass symposium, FuseFest (February 13 to 15), and culminates in a closing reception and artist panel on Friday, February 13, from 5:30 to 7:00 pm.
The exhibition explores the essential thresholds between the seen and the unseen, with each artist using glass to articulate the theme of ascension. Through their distinct practices, the artists propose that true ascension is not only flight or physical escape from a fragile planet, but fundamentally a transformation of consciousness—a radical shift toward heightened perception, empathy, and possibility.
For Jennifer Bueno, this ascension begins with the physical environment and stretches outward into space. Her luminous glass and painted forms translate the felt, intimate bond between the body and its environment into ethereal, suspended spaces. Through the synthesis of glass and evocative media, Bueno makes visible the invisible energies that sustain life, urging viewers toward an elevation of awareness rather than an abandonment of Earth. Her surfaces suggest an ecology of spirit, where the boundary between self and atmosphere dissolves.
Kimberly Thomas propels that ascent inward and psychologically. Through kinetic flameworked and mixed-media sculptures that merge realism with dark fantasy, she examines the human desire to transcend corruption, fear, and societal constraint. Her works visually capture the chaotic, fierce struggle required for deep personal change. In her universe, ascension is rebellion—a necessary, creative act of shedding imposed forms. She asks what it means to evolve beyond the corrupting weight of human constraint.
With Kit Paulson, ascension takes on an intellectual and spiritual precision. Her intricate glass constructions recall instruments of measurement, flight, and ritual, merging scientific curiosity with mythic longing. Her works operate like precise, visual diagrams of transcendence—the fragile, complex systems of knowledge and inner life. Through meticulous craftsmanship, Paulson makes visible the delicate balance between containment and release, the body and the infinite.
Together, these three artists imagine what it means to rise—emotionally, philosophically, and cosmically—from a planet in crisis. In Ascension, escape is not avoidance but an evolution.