"Klaus Moje awarded Honorary Companion" by Helen Musa (Bega District News)

Wapengo, Australia - Klaus Moje, of Wapengo, has been awarded an Honorary Companion in the General Division of the Order of Australia.

The former founding head of the glass workshop at the Canberra, now ANU, School of Art and former Canberra Times artist of the year was presented with the award by Governor-General Michael Jeffery for services to the visual arts as a glass artist.

After receiving the award Moje said hat although he was still a German citizen and thus not eligible for one of the normal honours, Australia was his chosen home and that to get such recognition was 'incredible'.

He is now working on an exhibition to be part of the 'Living Treasures' at the Object Gallery in Sydney, from where it would later travel to the US.

Born in Germany in 1936, Moje originally trained as a glasscutter and grinder in the family workshop in Hamburg.

During the 1970s he lectured in glass art at the Art and Crafts School, Copenhagen, Denmark, the Royal College of Art, London, and the Corning Museum Studio in New York.

In 1982 Moje became the founding head of the glass workshop at the Canberra School of Art, unleashing a tornado of glass-making and putting Canberra's top glass graduates on the world stage, especially with the distinctive style of kiln-formed glass he taught.

In 1989 he co-ordinated the exhibition Kiln-Formed Glass from Australia, which toured the US.

As an active member of the Canberra arts community, he organised the 1988 International Master Workshop in Kiln-Forming Glass Techniques here, and was exhibition co-ordinator for the Crafts Council of the ACT.

During the 1990's he was a member of the visual arts/crafts board of the Australia Council, won a 'Keating' - an Australian Creative Fellowship Award - in 1995 and was made Canberra Times Artist of the Year in 1998.

Moje has worked with glass blower Dale Chihuly, and once shared an exhibition with him in Denmark.

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March 28, 2006