One advantage of group exhibitions is the opportunity they offer to see a variety of techniques and use of material.

This is especially true of media traditionally thought of as craft, such as glass, fiber and clay, and is richly demonstrated in the fourth "Glass Birthday Suit" exhibition at the Pittsburgh Glass Center.

	Dan LeDonne's "Lizard Dial" is made of cast glass and bronze. Click photo for larger image.

An annual exhibition of instructor and student work, 37 glass artists in the current edition display pieces that were blown, fused, slumped, sand blasted, flame worked, cold worked and/or kiln worked.

They range from Stephen Protheroe's elegant black and white, Venetian-influenced, blown "Black Tear Vase" and "Wall Sconce," each well over 4 feet high, to Michael Mangiafico's jewel-like, torch-worked tiny "Dragonfly."

Jeffrey Phelps shows vibrantly colored blown vessels -- more may be seen in his solo show at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts through April 23 -- as does Daniel Johnese, who animates one of them with two living goldfish that comfortably peer through the wide band of glass left clear in the bulbous area they inhabit. Bill Zarvis' classical blown shapes are, conversely, dark and quiet, their glow inner.

Samantha Laffey's appealing "Sometimes I Lose My Marbles" places approximately 60 of the colorful flame-worked spheres within an open-weave, hinged, cast bronze container -- making sculpture out of a collection.

Scott Aiken received a pleasant surprise from an experiment with identical clear red marbles that he placed into a platter-shaped mold to slump and fuse. When heat was applied to "Autumn Honeycombs," the marbles revealed a range of colors from the yellow-red end of the spectrum, and assumed hexagonal shapes.

The award for perseverance as well as innovative use of material must go to Lindsay O'Leary's "The Only Land I Own," an installation comprising a few hundred clear green, glass grass blades, some 3 feet high, each handmade and hand-placed. They naturalistically reach up, twist and bend, like an unruly early spring lawn.

Whether you are passionate about contemporary glass or just developing an interest in it, the Center, and Morgan Contemporary Glass Gallery in Shadyside, are good places to both see work and to learn more about it with the help of their very capable staffs.

"Suit" continues through March 31 at 5472 Penn Ave. (a block from Negley). Hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. Admission: free; 412-365-2145 or www.pittsburghglasscenter.org.