Present with a new exhibition in Iași, the painter Ștefan Câltia invites us to rediscover a world of a forgotten but so current craft through the objects of our daily life: glass blown and decorated by artisans who carry on a tradition from the 17th century Transylvania. We invite you to the opening of the exhibition "Ștefan Câlţia. Glassworks. Approaching a craft", which will take place at Artep Gallery (Șoseaua Sărărie, no. 15) on Tuesday, December 7th, 2021, at 5.30 p.m. The album with the same name, published by Ștefan Câlţia Foundation and Artep Gallery will also be launched then. The still-life paintings of the painter Ștefan Câlţia often reproduce the astonishing transparency and fragility of vases or cups with flowers, which most often decorate the blue houses in the artist's paintings. But do these clear glass mugs still exist beyond the paintings signed by the painter? In 2021 Ștefan Câlţia Foundation started an extensive project that will last several years, dedicated to the rediscovery of the Transylvanian glassware craft and the reintegration of glassware into the contemporary cultural context. The exhibition "Ștefan Călția. Housekeeping. Approaching a craft", curated by Matei Câlţia, can be visited in Iași, at Artep Gallery, between December 7th, 2021 and January 20th, 2022. In addition to the paintings selected for the exhibition - over 30 old and recent works - the glass objects made in traditional glassworks are also exhibited. They were the source of this extensive effort to recover an almost extinct craft. Two limited series of decorative objects made by guest glassmakers (Dan Bordianu and Iulian Bordianu) are available, as part of this project, for the public interested. "The name glassworks (glăjărie) is linked to the presence of glassmakers from Europe who spoke German dialects. The German word Glas (glass) was adopted by the Transylvanian vernacular, using glăjă and then the derived denominations glăjărie (glass workshop) and glăjar (glass-blower). Most of the glass production in the glassworks of Făgăraş was due to these traditional techniques that were perpetuated from generation to generation until the beginning of the 20th century. These techniques were reminiscent of the old ones, of Venetian origin; here, however, "forest glass" was worked, a regional form, a step lower than Venetian glass, the walls were thin but the transparency was not colorless, due to the iron residues from boiling the beech ash, the melting temperature was not uniform, the proof being the noticeable air bubbles on the walls of the glass vessels" as Dr. Ligia Fulga mentions talking about the techniques and history of this craft. The career of Ștefan Câlţia (born in 1942) has a stylistic autonomy that transcends fashion. And which does not mean a translation of the present into terms of perennity, the works of Ștefan Câlţia talk about the present through generally valid symbols, in a direct connection with "life" and "the world". His works compose a description of the natural things in life, understood as place, nature, carnival or travel. His most recent exhibitions are "Ștefan Câlţia. Border blue", Annart Gallery in Bucharest, December 2021, "Uroborus. Ștefan Câlţia", National Art Museum of Moldova, Chişinau, October 2019, "Ștefan Câlţia. Fragility", Artep Gallery in Iași, April 2019, "Works from over the summer", two exhibitions opened simultaneously at Galeria Posibilă and Galeria Annart, in Bucharest, in 2018 and "Ștefan Câlţia. Speaking objects" organized at the Museum of Art Collections in Bucharest, in 2017.