When it comes to collaborations for events that bring massive amounts of art to as many people as possible, no one does it better in D.C. than the folks at Artomatic. Expanding out from their (now annual) giant art fair of the same name, Artomatic has joined with the D.C. Government, the Georgetown Business Improvement District, three artist organizations from different cities, and their host venue, the Shops at Georgetown Park to execute Glass3, which opened last night.

The show features nearly 50 glass artists from Washington, D.C, Toledo, Ohio, and Sunderland, England. Though we’ll get to the actual art in a minute, this show is about a lot more than that. For its part, Toledo is the “birthplace of the studio glass movement”; glass plays an enormous role in both art and manufacturing in the town. While Sunderland is actually one of our eleven Sister Cities around the world; it has ties to George Washington’s family dating back to the 12th century, and — what do you know — is home to a tradition of glass art going back to the 1600s. Artomatic teamed up with D.C.’s Office of the Secretary, which runs the Sister City program, to bring the Cohesion Artists of Sunderland on board. The hope is that working together to organize events like this, artists from different schools of thought will meet and share ideas, art viewers will get a chance to see highly respected international work, and in the long run, these partnerships will result in sustainable relationships that impact both towns artistically and economically — such as in utilizing unoccupied commercial space, as this show does.

But does all of this lovey-dovey, hands-around-the-world stuff translate into a good art show? In this case, definitely. Glass work has always faced a tough challenge being accepted as “fine art” and not “a bunch of bowls and vases you find at the craft fair.” And if anyone can make you change your mind, its the artists from Sunderland. Some of the artists are actually experts in glass theory with Ph.Ds and have developed techniques that not only create beautiful art, but have revolutionized architecture and other uses for the medium.