Norwegian Crafts is pleased to announce the selected grant recipients who will go to Pilchuck Glass School this year with support from the American-Scandinavian Foundation and Norwegian Crafts: Madelen Isa Lindgren and Lissette Escobar.

Norwegian Crafts is guaranteed 1-2 places for Norway-based artists in Pilchuck's Summer Programmes. The American-Scandinavian Foundation’s Arts & Crafts Fellowship Program and Norwegian Crafts provide a grant for the selected artists to cover most expenses related to the workshops. These programmes aim to provide unique and diverse opportunities for artists in the craft field, namely by offering Norway-based craft artists a place at renowned schools, workshops, and residencies.

Madelen Isa Lindgren

«Pilchuck Glass School is a place where I can push my practice and learn new techniques and skills from established glass masters. I will be part of the 'Lean In workshop', where I will be introduced to techniques such as lost wax casting and pâte deverre, discovering new cross-material interactions. I see this experience as an important milestone for my practice, and I'm excited to meet artists from around the world, sharing a common passion and creating bonds for the future.»

Madelen Isa Lindgren (b. 1990, Fredrikstad) is an artist who works with sculpture and installations. She creates sculptural narratives that blend organic forms with industrial elements, addressing themes of time, ecofeminism, memory, and materiality through the lens of archaeological traces and futuristic speculation. A key aspect of her methodology involves imitation and manipulation to reshape and reinterpret recognizable forms into new hybrids. Through these transformations, her work emphasizes the need to reimagine our relationship with the environment and encourage care for the unknown

Lindgren completed her master’s degree from the Art Academy in Bergen (2024) and is currently preparing for her upcoming solo exhibition at The Association of Norwegian Sculptors in April 2025.

Lissette Escobar

«I have always found glass fascinating. I am eager to learn more about diverse glass techniques so that I have the tools to explore ways of integrating them into my ceramic practice. I look forward to expanding my professional international network at a specialized and well-established institution such as Pilchuck.»

Lissette Escobar (b. 1982, Lima, Peru) is a Peruvian-French ceramic artist based in Sula municipality, south of Ålesund, Norway, she has lived in Norway since 2007. Escobar's ceramic sculptures are informed by pre-Inca archaeological ceramic findings from Peru. Using low-fired terracotta clay and the coiling technique, she abstracts figurative forms into organic vessels. Her work reflects on the human experience, searching for connections that can link civilizations across borders and time. A recurring theme in her work are life and death —a timeless fascination humanity has with its mortality.

She holds a BA and an MFA (2018) in Material-Based Art from the Oslo National Academy of the Arts. In Norway, her works are included in the public collections of KODE (Bergen), Nordenfjeldske Kunstindustrimuseum, Trondheim Municipality (Trondheim), and VITI Museum (Ålesund).