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With a clever title like "Glassnost," the latest exhibition at Carnegie Mellon University's Regina Gouger Miller Gallery features works that are equally clever by nine artists who either are, or were, art instructors at the university.

The very title, of course, is a play on words. A twist on the Russian word "glasnost," which most folks older than 35 know as the name of former Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev's 1985 program for reform.

But Gorbachev himself actually borrowed the term. The word literally translates as "transparency," which is a subtle hint toward the thread that runs through this exhibition -- glass.

Organized by glass artist Kathleen Mulcahy, who last taught glassblowing at CMU in the mid-1980s, this exhibition was inspired by a previous exhibit she also curated titled "Artists Crossing Lines," which was on display in 2002 at the Pittsburgh Glass Center.

Like that previous exhibition, most of the artists participating in "Glassnost" work primarily in other media, but at Mulcahy's urging have taken on the challenge of incorporating glass into works that are similar to their usual investigations.

"I invited (the artists) to think in glass," Mulcahy says. "An important piece of the puzzle was to connect with professional artists living in our region who do not necessarily work in glass, but whose aesthetic wisdom and intellectual pursuit led us to believe they can look at glass or making art with glass in a fresh new way."

Some of the same artwork that was displayed at the Glass Center can be found here, such as Ron Desmett's "Lidded Trunk Vessels," which are large and lumpy black jars formed by blowing molten glass into hollowed-out tree trunks, and Carol Kumata's installation "Fragile," which is a huge mass of suspended, clear-glass candelabras filled with candles, underneath of which the word "fragile" is spelled out in dripped candle wax on the floor.

Kumata's installation reflects her interest in dichotomy by showcasing opposites and complements, inner truths and outer appearances. Several of her works rely upon the passage of time as a key element. Her work in this exhibition, "Fragile," relies upon dripping candle wax that accumulates over time.

Like Kumata, who has been a professor of art at Carnegie Mellon since 1979 and primarily works as a sculptor, most of the artists participating in "Glassnost" work primarily in other media. But their works here exemplify the dialogue that occurs when artists open avenues to new work and, especially, collaboration.

Hilary Harp and Susie Silver have been working collaboratively on projects for some time, such as their single-channel video "The Happiest Day," which has been screened at video and art festivals around the world.

Here, several blob-like abstract glass sculptures displayed on funky pedestals that are obviously influenced by sci-fi movie sets are situated in front of their video piece "Nebula," which features the same sculptures twirling in space to the sound of kitschy "space music."

Harp, who recently left Carnegie Mellon University, where she taught sculpture, to teach at Arizona State University, created the pieces last year during a one-year residency at the Pittsburgh Glass Center that was paid for by a Creative Heights grant from The Heinz Endowments.

Having never worked in glass before, she brings an awkwardness to the medium that underscores its inherent qualities. Looking like chunks of frozen rubble, each piece is spotlit in the overall blackened space so as to highlight its individual iridescent and fractal qualities.

Former painting and drawing professor Patricia Bellan-Gillen's paintings have been described as "mixtures of T.S. Eliot and slang" and "flickering between beauty and silliness, between elegance and humor."

Her installation piece "Wake/Liquid of Contention" is a summation of both notions, being a large expanse of plate glass propped up on drinking glasses. The plate glass has been printed with images of sea monsters. On top of the glass are more than 40 gray and orange scale models of old sailing ships. All of this is between two kid-size chairs propped up on sticks, looking like lifeguard stations. It's an arresting piece, not only because of its obvious drama, but because of the multitude of visual puns contained within it.

Nearby, Andrew Johnson's installation "Till" is just as arresting. It look like a simple arrangement of farm implements strewn on a barn floor, but each metal part of the tools has been replaced with a glass replica, such as a glass-bladed scythe and a glass pick-axe head.

Johnson works in several types of media, from painting and drawing to sculpture, installations and performance art. Some of the topics of his past solo exhibitions include predatory economics, hemispheric hegemonies and the unabated sowing of land mines. Here he gets down to basics, with a piece that addresses the usefulness of old technology.

Finally, a large-scale collaborative installation among Martin Prekop, a professor of art at Carnegie Mellon and the former dean of the College of Fine Art; and married couple Mulcahy and Desmett, who played a key role in founding the Pittsburgh Glass Center, fills up a large portion of the gallery's third floor.

Titled "House," it features several tiers of mirrors and photographs that reflect, literally and figuratively, Prekop's own house in O'Hara, which has been something of an ongoing work of art since 1993.

Prekop has transformed the outside of his family's 1960s tri-level with glass mirrors laminated over the original brick, and the inside in a multitude of ways, the least of which is a zebra-striped/faux-wood-grain bathroom.

Pictures of the house, inside and out, are interspersed between mirrors and small glass sculptures by Mulcahy and Desmett, both of whom have larger pieces on display nearby.

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