So, when a Washington Post art critic tells an artist that their work is the only salvageable thing in an art show of six-hundred pieces, that's a good thing, right? Maybe not when it's spat with the vitriolic follow-up that, "glass is such a gorgeous medium it's hard to screw it up."

Which is funny, because technically glass blowing is pretty easy to screw up. It took 2,000 years of work, from Mesopotamia to Syria, to perfect glass blowing. The modern approach still requires a 2,000 degree furnace and a burn-victim provoking oxygen-propane flame. Ask Alison Sigethy, part of Compelled by Content II, now on view at the Fraser, about the practice. Two of her works were shattered on the way to the show by a botched foam pack job at UPS. One of Robin Cass' bird sculptures lost a tail. Oops.

"Glass is traditionally viewed as craft," offered Lenny Campello, co-owner of the Fraser Gallery. That's putting it nicely. Think bowls, vases, and illicit fake-rose containers; the last time most DCist readers saw 'glass art' was at an Ocean City head shop.

The glass artists first found solace in last year's Compelled show. Many come from the Washington Glass School --self described as the "most-artist friendly" -- where the beleaguered skill is honed and respected. The previous show was curated by glass art superstar Tim Tate, who has been leading the charge away from the decorative and bringing glass sculptors to the front lines in the DC art scene.

Catriona Fraser takes over curation for the current show, featuring ten different artists with work driven by narrative. Some are more obvious, with mother-daughter collaborators Liz and Lindsey Mears serving a massive glass book of photography and poetry. Others, like Robin Cass and Syl Mathis, cater to whimsical and minimalist forms.

Show stealer Carmen Lozar delivers the goods in small glass dolls with big problems. A bride vomits off a dock, seemingly to fill an ocean. A pair of dolphins are caught in a glistening glass-sea, in a perpetual loop that the viewer propels with a small crank. Some distance suggests the latter is a music box, but as you approach it's a pillbox that teaches melancholy repetition.

Compelled by Content II at the Fraser Gallery through June 4.