April Surgent, “Between the Night and the City.” Photo: Jeff Curtis.

This year's Neddys (a.k.a. the Neddy Artist Fellowship finalists) are up at Tacoma Art Museum, and I went along to the official opening party on Saturday night. Plenty of people, and just a bit more than the usual excitement that attends these things. Why? Because this year, for the first time, the Neddy awards honor artists in one of the Northwest's most idiosyncratic media: glass.

Established in 1996 by the Behnke Family and Foundation as a memorial to Seattle painter Robert E. (Ned) Behnke, the fellowships are given each year in two categories: paint, and one other medium. They've included ceramics, photography, printmaking and sculpture, all twice. So why has it taken the awards 13 years to come around to the idea of glass as an awardable art form?

"It's a question of priorities," says TAM curator for the show, Rock Hushka, who says the non-paint category is chosen by the Behnke family. "Glass was an obvious medium that they hadn't gotten around to yet."

On display now at TAM (the museum has hosted the awards since 2005) are the three nominees and one fellowship-winner in both painting and glass. These include painters Eric Elliott (winner), Timothy Cross, Gary Faigin and Lynda Lowe; and glass artists April Surgent (winner), Benjamin Moore, Joey Kirkpatrick/Flora Mace, and Jenny Pohlman/Sabrina Knowles. It's a really nice show, and the glass is particularly stunning (and welcome - TAM doesn't usually do much glass.)

Eric Elliott, “Studio Corner.” Courtesy of the artist and James Harris Gallery, Seattle.

Highlights are Elliott's dense, 3D-daubed canvases, which cloud an empty room with opaque greens and blues like an almost-lost memory; and Cross' draftsman-like landscapes, painted like a sumi-e artist in love with duct tape. Surgent's glass cameos, with black-and-white photographs engraved on layered fused glass, also obscure - her window-shopper is beautifully submerged in the glitter of the pastries in the window.

Pohlman and Knowles show a stunning eye for balance and form as they combine beads, metal and delicately female glass forms in altar-like sculptures, while Mace and Kirkpatrick play easily with technique and humor in their huge glass fruit, polished like plastic or candy-striped with zanfirico filigree.

Sabrina Knowles and Jenny Pohlman, “Memory Unchained” from the Tapestry series. Photo: Russell Johnson.

The Neddy Fellowship is on view through October 4 at Tacoma Art Museum, 1701 Pacific Ave., Tacoma. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-8 p.m. third Thursdays, 12-5 p.m. Sundays. $7.50/$6.50/five-and-under free, third Thursdays free. 253-272-4258, www.tacomaartmuseum.org</div>