Occasionally an artist is commissioned to create a work that advances their skills to such a degree that no project seems unreachable going forward. Such was the case with De Carter Ray’s History of Transportation, created in 2017 for C. Graham Berwind III’s residence. The original work on which the project was based was designed by Jean Dupas and constructed for the transatlantic ship the S.S. Normandie in 1935. The original took 2 years to make; Carter Ray had only eight months.

Requested as a feature for her client’s dining room wall, Carter Ray’s drawings were followed by photography, then scanning into a computer. Ropes, guns, anchors, chains, rigging and carbuncles were all carved. Longer rigging lines were carved 1/16 of an inch and filled with enamel paint. For the entire project, the artist had to work in reverse and flip the piece sideways on an easel in order to reach it. The piece was done in stages. Each panel design was carefully taken apart, foreground to background, one item at a time. All of the Van Dyke brown had to be painted first; then the hand painted flags on the sails; the birds in front of the sails; the shading on sails and mastheads; the rigging holding the masts; the long hand painted lines with brushes; the gold paint over that; and then Manetti gold leaf. Each layer had to dry eight hours minimum in order to prevent the paint from peeling and lifting later. The finer details were hand painted with a paint brush, and the rest air-brushed with an Iwita dual action micro airbrush. 

Frame construction and installation presented additional learning curves. Living in an earthquake state, Carter Ray wanted to ensure the piece wouldn’t be held too tightly and break from strain. The frame needed to look lighter than air yet be supported from the bottom. She designed clips to hold the piece on top and a brass bar that could support 1100 pounds on the bottom. The art was divided into four panels, each piece 36 inches wide by 83 3/8 inches tall. The overall finished width spans 12 feet wide and almost 7 feet tall, totaling 95 square feet. 

Creg Oosterhart, project designer, said “De, if you ever work for a new client, and they question your abilities, just show them a photograph of this, and say, ‘I designed and manufactured every aspect of this project- start to finish.’ It will remove all doubt.” 

Carter Ray’s history includes working as a draftsperson for Hughes Aircraft in El Segundo, California, where she learned to draw landing gears and correct blueprints using a T square and a triangle. She also worked for printing companies, at one time drawing illustrations of food and woks for a book titled Madame Wu’s Art of Chinese Cooking. In combination with some of these early skills, the artist marries client inspiration with her own spectacular vision for a project resulting in stunning flat glass creations that grace homes and businesses around the globe. Self-taught, her skill set includes carved, etched, stained, leaded, painted, and mosaic glass, as well as frit painted and slumped glass, and beveled windows. She is currently experimenting with fused glass and its incorporation into her work.

States Carter Ray: “The making of art glass is my life’s work. Clients have an idea at the studio, and we bring it to fruition. It is all about process, finding the right inspiration for a particular subject. Usually, the art requested has a purpose. I will be given a space to work with, a subject matter, and the inspiration to fill it. My job is to listen. Take all the elements in to consideration, put a different spin on the ball and hand it back to them in a way that is workable, and attractive, hopefully better than what was originally conceived.”

Carter Ray established Classical Glass Studio in Huntington Beach, California, in 1983, and brings over 32 years of experience to her customer’s art glass needs.

Under cover of his signature top hat and distinctive moustache, Lewis Wilson has accomplished more than most people dream of. His list of achievements includes success as a glass art instructional video producer, demonstrating lampworking artist, promoter of the world’s largest hot glass competition, and founding member of the International Society of Glass Beadmakers. A fixture at glass bead and pipe shows, “Looie” is also a fire-eating juggler, knife swallower and a black belt in karate. In his Crystal Myths gallery, you’ll find everything from goblets and vases to birds and dinosaurs. The fantasy realm is where this artist draws much of his inspiration.

Being from New Mexico, it is only fitting that Wilson is also known for glass sculptures of Native American ceremonial dancers. The intricately costumed pieces have not only become prized additions to private collections, but were also given as official presentations from the state of New Mexico to visiting dignitaries such as King Juan Carlos of Spain, blues legend Bo Diddley, and Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton.

Born in 1949 in Roswell, New Mexico, Wilson was part of a military family that moved frequently to places such as Dallas, Texas, then Morroco, North Africa, and on to Riverside, California. In 1960, 11-year-old Wilson moved with his family to Goose Bay, Canada, where he taught himself how to eat fire, juggle, throw knives and do various magic and circus tricks. In 1963 following a move to Albuquerque, New Mexico, he started learning Shotokan karate, receiving his first-degree black belt in 1969. 

Joining the United States Air Force in 1970, Wilson was a medic during the Vietnam war, stationed at Cocoa Beach, Florida. During the slow hours of the night, he taught himself about glass through an old scientific glass blowing book he found in the Air Force base library. The medical lab was his studio and a Bunsen burner his equipment. There he made intricately woven animal figurines from 4 mm Pyrex stirring rods.

Wilson’s first real lessons in glass blowing came in 1973 under the tutelage of Alfonso and Tomas Arribas who had reportedly caught the attention of Walt Disney when the brothers represented Spain at the 1964–‘65 New York World’s Fair. Wilson talked them into an apprenticeship at the Crystal Arts on Main Street, U.S.A at Disneyworld where he made thousands of crabs, teapots and birdbaths for the tourists. Mexican glass blower Miguil Bonilla, who also worked for Disney, was another of his mentors.

Upon leaving the Air Force in 1974, Wilson went the following day to Busch Gardens in Tampa, Florida, to try to secure a job as a glassblower. There were no glassblowing openings, however they did have a vacancy for a juggler and fire-eater. For the next two years he worked with tattooed belly dancers, a magician, and an organ grinder and his monkey. Later that year, Wilson married, and his family moved to St. Petersburg, Florida, where he opened his glass business, Crystal Myths. 

In 1993, Wilson produced his first glassworking video, Glass Bead Making, and now has produced more than 20 titles. In 1996, Crystal Myths promoted its first show, The Best Bead Show, in Tucson, Arizona, earning him the nickname of “the P.T. Barnum of Beadmakers.” In 2002, Wilson promoted the world’s largest hot glass competition called the Albuquerque Flame-Off. There, 300 glass workers from the U.S. and Canada worked on six torches running for 12 hours a day for two days. 

In 2005, Wilson demonstrated at the Kobe International Lampworking Festival in Kobe, Japan, and only spoke Japanese, which he taught himself, during the demo. Later that year, a building was named after him at Art Glass Invitational in September, one of the highlights of his career. 

Wilson sold the Best Bead Shows in 2008, re-emerging as a talented artist able to concentrate fully on lampworking. Later that year, at the Oakland ISGB convention, he was presented with the Hall of Flame Award. In 2011, Wilson married glass artist Barbara Svetlick with whom he founded Soft Glass Invitational, promoted for two years in Hilliards, Pennsylvania. In 2015, the event was given to Kris Schaible, and she continues to promote the event. 

These days, Wilson spends the bulk of his time filling commissions and doing standard production work, with the remainder dedicated to new designs. He and his wife enjoy collaborating, which comprises about 10 percent of each artist’s work. With Svetlick’s flowers added to Wilson’s glass sculpture or her sculpture incorporating his beads, the artwork benefits from the best of both worlds.

world-renowned glass artist located in Washington State, Phil Siegel developed his own unique understanding of flameworked glass without any formal education or apprenticeship. With an extensive background in construction and education in architecture, he challenges himself to create a relationship between fantasy and structure throughout his pieces while relating to his spiritual, intellectual, and emotional self. 

Born in 1972 in Petaluma, California, Siegel developed a career as a general contractor designing and building high-end homes, working with clients from the ground up. In 2008 the economy crashed, banks stopped loaning money, and people stopped building houses. Out of work and experiencing his first winter off in years, Siegel began exploring a book he’d purchased 18 years earlier – Intro to Glassblowing by Homer Hoyt. 

In 2010, at age 38, Siegel took his first classes in flameworking pipes, something he’d wanted to do since seeing basic spoon pipes at a Grateful Dead show years prior. As a busy contractor, he had no idea how pipe art had evolved over the years, and his fellow students suggested he check out Instagram for education and inspiration. Siegel eventually progressed in his own torch skills to the point where the owner of the studio where he was taking classes, Dustin Revere at Revere Glass in Berkeley, offered him a job. Siegel worked there for five months before opening his own studio. His early glass included sculptural pieces adorned in classical line work, horns, symmetrical builds that were classically inspired, and bumblebee rigs. But perhaps one of his most successful series began six years into his glass career. When Siegel’s wife suggested he make a pipe for himself, the artist created a wizard figure based on a Christmas gnome he’d made as an ornament. 

He states: “I posted it as a goof really. I never thought people would enjoy it so much. But there was nobody making a wizard pipe at that time. And the more that I made, the more people requested them. It was the first time I made something that wasn’t an exercise in discipline. I came from a world that rewarded precision, symmetry, proper planning. I didn’t have a whole lot of experience making something whimsical and fun. It was hard for me to begin with. I’m thankful for the wizards more than anything, because they allowed me to find that more childlike part of myself when it comes to the creative process.”

An avid reader of Joseph Campbell, archetypes resonate with Siegel. When he noticed that pipe artists weren’t utilizing traditional art space – walls – the artist created a series of shallow shadowbox pieces featuring fish in 3D movement. These works frame pipes in a new way while telling a story. Siegel was inspired by a legend involving a huge school of golden Koi swimming upstream the Yellow River in China. Gaining strength by fighting against the current, the school glimmered as they swam together through the river. When they reached a waterfall at the end of the river, many of the Koi turned back, letting the flow of the river carry them away. The remaining Koi refused to give up. Leaping from the depths of the river, they attempted to reach the top of the waterfall to no avail. Their efforts caught the attention of local demons, who mocked their efforts and heightened the waterfall out of malice. After a hundred years of jumping, one Koi finally reached the top of the waterfall. The gods recognized the Koi for its perseverance and determination and turned it into a golden dragon, the image of power and strength.

“I’m intrigued by folklore in general because it’s specifically tailored for each culture but is also globally understood by humanity,” explains Siegel. “All cultures share archetypes – hero, martyr, pariah. These stories are universal and touch on many of the same motifs. They warn or inspire. They’re equally powerful, and people gravitate toward both.”

Describing himself as “more rigid in the way he thinks things through,” Siegel is currently working on a project that required 200 hours of prep. One of his ancient Lost Gods series, the Feathered Serpent is a prominent supernatural entity or deity, found in many Mesoamerican religions. It is still called Quetzalcoatl among the Aztecs. The double symbolism used by the Feathered Serpent is considered allegoric to the dual nature of the deity, where being feathered represents its divine nature or ability to fly to reach the skies and being a serpent represents its human nature or ability to creep on the ground among other animals of the Earth, a dualism very common in Mesoamerican deities. 

Says Siegel: “Snake motifs, bird motifs, these Gods are inspired by multidimensional beings that passed into this dimension to share knowledge and help humanity evolve.” 

On 4/20, Siegel had a solo show at Fuego Smoke Shop called Conjuring Clouds. From January 30 – February 3, 2023, he, Lacey (Laceface) Walton, and Chris (Hickory) Vickers collaborated at the Coring Museum of Glass studio, employing advanced flameworking techniques that included complex assembly of hollow forms and finely detailed solid sculptural elements, which came together into a compositional sculpture. This work incorporated each artist’s individual style into a seamlessly blended idea. From May 18 – 20, Siegel and LaceFace will co-teach a class at Orlando Glass Union, Orlando, Florida.

Says Siegel: “The most exciting things going on in glass right now are happening in the pipe world. We are not constricted by traditional ideals of art. It’s pulled from a nexus of popular imagery from our own small community and larger cultural elements. These things aren’t really being expressed in much of any of the other glass that’s being made. The pipe community has a lot of pretty far-reaching ideas.”

For four generations, the Raiffe family toy designers and inventors used ingenuity and creativity to bring joy to others. In homage to this family tradition, Josh Raiffe carries out that mission in his own uniquely beautiful medium – hot glass. He recently caught the attention of both art and fashion lovers with his creative glass interpretation of the Coperni Swipe Bag – a modern handbag designed to adorn a subject’s hand. 

Coperni approached Raiffe to create a glass bag for a photo shoot. His original design was inspired by the painting of Saint Denis of Paris. Holding his head in his hands, a halo appears where St. Denis’ head once rested. Raiffe wanted to create a glass handbag that would reveal a halo around the hand of its wearer, selecting colors to illuminate the hand as if to reveal a divinity from within. 

Experimenting with glass color combinations, he applies an overlay to the inside and outside of each of his bags. The glass layers work in concert to create color combinations that are amplified through a coldworking process. The resulting objects have captured the attention of art and fashion enthusiasts alike, making the laborious process required to create them worthwhile. 

Raiffe loves to create in a space where emotion and instinct supersede language and rationality. His pieces are first and foremost inspired by personal relationships and emotions such as love, conflict, anger or intimacy. He creates pieces that allow the owner/observer to feel something unique based on their own personal experiences. As an artist who celebrates self-expression, he explains: “I hope people use my work to express themselves by adorning their spaces and their bodies with objects that speak to them.”

The son of Meryl Raiffe, owner of The Glass Underground, Warren, New Jersey, Josh Raiffe earned his BFA from Tyler School of Art, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. During that time, he worked for Belle Mead Hot Glass, Township, New Jersey, producing blown chandelier parts and taught classes at the Crefeld School in Philly. Upon graduating from Tyler, he received the Steve Stormer Award and the Penland Partner Scholarship, which allowed him to attend the Penland School of Craft, Bakersfield, North Carolina. He has also been fortunate enough to attend classes at Pilchuck Glass School, Stanwood, Washington, and the Bullseye Resource Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico. 

Raiffe has taught glass classes at the Tyler School of Art, East Falls Glassworks in Philly, Brooklyn Glass and UrbanGlass in New York. He also assists with fabrication for glass artists Thaddeus Wolf, Rob Wynne, Mitchiko Sakano, Jamie Harris and Deborah Czeresko. As a Brooklyn-based designer, Raiffe has collaborated with DesignSpec Co-Founder Fiona Sanipelli to create original art installations for interiors projects. His work, which also includes lighting and neon, has been exhibited at Philadelphia locations such as the Philadelphia Art Alliance, the Sculpture Gym, and the Spirit of the Artist, and at 555 Gallery in Boston, Massachusetts. It was featured on the pages of New Glass Review 38, The Corning Museum of Glass’ yearly survey of cutting-edge artworks made with glass. Raiffe is represented by Habatat Gallery, Piece Gallery, Strada and Hawk Gallery.

Objects become memorable when they prompt an emotional response from their audience. Though Raiffe’s glass work has been owned by celebrities such as Dojacat, Kylie Jenner, JT, Beth Dewoody, Olivia Song and Snoop Dog, he makes art to be enjoyed by the masses.

Drawing from the wild and erotic character of the natural environment, Bri Chesler’s work reflects on cultural obsessions of beauty and their relationships to internal anatomies. By fusing similar elements found in biology and botany she creates forms that flirt with the audience, exploring ideas of intimacy and desire. Known for its nontraditional approach, her work combines a variety of glass techniques with other media. 

Says Chesler: “Over the last few years glass has become the focus of my material exploration. The process revolves around using your body, the momentum of its movements, and your breath to shape a form. You have to allow yourself to be vulnerable. A dance between artist and medium, each movement carefully caressing, convincing the glass to become something new. The reality and illusion of its fragility, its weightless transparent quality, feed into the idea of being exposed, a material, a skin, that has the ability to be both vacant and full of depth.” 

She continues: “I like to maintain a glass focus while using a multidisciplinary approach, emphasizing qualities found in both materials that translate a similar idea or aesthetic. Manipulating surfaces and materials in a way that plays with the audiences’ perception allows me to develop a surreal dialog by diminishing the limitations of material identity. The cohesion of different glass techniques and other media has become something innate to my making; it’s what defines me as a glass artist. It not only allows me to explore the material in untraditional ways, but it also demonstrates and highlights the multidimensional nature of glass itself.”

Though she now lives in Seattle, Chesler credits her Palm Beach upbringing as a major influence. While Florida’s landscapes inspired the foundation for her conceptual ideas, the cultural environment informed the themes of superficial beauty, intimacy, and empathy. A product of BAK MSOA and Dreyfoos High School of the Arts, the former alum always knew her calling was a visual one. She discovered her passion for glass while studying metal and foundry processes at the Kansas City Art Institute during her undergraduate studies. The sensual and organic aesthetic of glass resonated with Chesler in a way that metal did not.

Chesler has received accolades such as the 2019 Pilchuck Emerging Artist-in-Residence award, the 2020 Hauberg Fellowship, the 2021 Glass Art Society’s Saxe Emerging Artist Award, and a Chihuly Gardens and Glass Anniversary Scholarship. In 2022, she taught as an instructor at Pilchuck Glass School and was featured in a solo exhibition, titled Untamed: The Anatomy of Desire, at the Center on Contemporary Arts in Seattle. Her works have also been exhibited at the Bellevue Arts Museum in Washington State and Habatat Gallery in Michigan. 

DELECTABLE, a collaborative installation, is on view now through April 15 at Method Gallery. Chesler and MinHi England (Blown Away 3 finalist) bonded after learning about shared traumatic life experiences, only to realize the conceptual parallels in their artistic practice. In 2017, they founded a collaborative brand called Liquid Lush Studio and have since been collaborating artistically. Throughout that time, they have continued a partnership not only creatively but in a familial friendship. The two describe themselves as “widow wives” after caring for and witnessing cancer take the life of Jesse England. After surviving this new shared traumatic life experience, their connection grew stronger and motivated the two to continue a collaborative partnership.

Museum of Glass (MOG), Tacoma, presents a concert in the Hot Shop on April 20, featuring local music group Mirrorgloss alongside live glassblowing demonstrations led by Chesler and England. The artists will act as lead gaffers for the evening, guiding Museum of Glass Hot Shop Starter Sarah Gilbert and students from the Hilltop Artists program in creating works inspired by the music. The event is inspired by the themes of feminism and the work of powerful women-identifying and gender-expansive artists in MOG’s current exhibition She Bends: Redefining Neon Legacy.

Chesler and England will also demonstrate at the Glass Art Society Conference in Detroit, Michigan, in June 2023 as well as co-teach at OxBow School of Art, Saugatuck, Michigan, in July 2023.

Both through his own works and his activities in education, Richard Meitner has had a profoundly positive and highly visible impact on art in glass internationally. His works have been shown around the world and have been included in almost every major international museum exhibition of art in glass for the last 25 years. In spite of his considerable reknown, Meitner’s work has never been mainstream. His place is always on the outer edge of what is happening, searching, challenging, discovering, taking risks, as if he were a child at play. It is this desire to discover and speak as a child does, to learn and rejoice in that learning, but also the willingness to be caught off guard, and amazed or puzzled by experience, which has always been at the heart of his activities. 

Anna Venini wrote: “The best way to express what I like most about Richard and his work is perhaps this: he lives in an extraordinary world, one that is not simply the pleasing world of fairy tales but is at the same time a breeding ground for some serious (albeit elusive) philosophical thought and research. It is from this place that he creates. It is my feeling that he has not only already accomplished great things, but has, in addition, a long career in front of him as an important artist. I come from a family of glass makers. I love Richard’s work most certainly not only for that reason, but also because Richard is able to approach that material and to use it with culture, with great fantasy and originality, with authority and great thoughtfulness. That combination is, in my experience, highly unusual.” 

An artist with decades of experience and practice in art and art education, Meitner has lived in Amsterdam since 1972. He has lectured and conducted workshops in the U.S.A., Great Britain, the Netherlands, Germany, France, Spain, Malta, Portugal, Sweden, Denmark, the Czech Republic, Italy and Japan. He has been invited artist-in-residence in many countries and has worked as a designer for the glass industry in Italy, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Belgium. Additionally, Meitner has served on the Dutch National Commission for Endowments for the Arts and the Dutch National Advisory Board for the Arts. Together with Mieke Groot, he was responsible from 1981 to 2000 for the glass department of the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam. In 2006, he was appointed to the faculty for Science and Technology of the Universidade Nova de Lisboa (New University of Lisbon), Portugal. Meitner’s major exhibitions include a retrospective at the Musee des Arts Decoratifs of the Louvre in Paris, and solo shows at the National Museum for the History of Science and Medicine in Leiden, Netherlands, the National Glass Museum in Sunderland, England, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, and the Corning Museum of Glass in the U.S.A. His work is included in the permanent collections of more than 60 museums in 16 countries. In 2020, the artist received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Glass Art Society.

In 2016, Meitner earned a PhD in sculpture from the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Lisbon, Portugal. His doctoral thesis made the case that in education and public policy for art, the way we define, make policy for and teach art is in many respects incorrect and ineffective. He formulates his arguments citing science and many other sources that strongly suggest that we need urgently to discuss, rethink and come to much more accurate and useful understandings of what making and appreciating art are really about. 

In 2023, Meitner will begin work for his upcoming solo show at Galeria Caterina Tognon in Venice during the Biennale and continue to build a working collaboration with his partner, Nataliya Vladychko, a talented Ukrainian artist. He will also carry on his work with the Vicarte Research Unit at Universidade Nova in Lisbon, i.e. working with young student artists in the Master’s degree program for the Art and Science of Glass and Ceramics. 

Saya Meitner: “Helping young talented artists as a teacher is something I’ve done for many decades, and has become quite an important aspect of both my career and my life.”

Travelling the world participating in internships and workshops is the cornerstone of Sofia Villamarin’s glass experience. Her unique personal works in stained glass utilize three-dimensionality, fragmented imagery and her stunning painting abilities to express stories and reflections of self as well as her unique perspective on life.

Of Argentinian and Italian nationality, Villamarin was born in 1979 and lived in Argentina until she was 28 years old. In 2003, she graduated with a degree in Visual Communication Design, but the following year began her education in stained glass art. Awarded a scholarship to study glass painting, in 2008 Villamarin travelled to the studio of Italian artist Sante Pizzol in Milan, Italy. She also attended Vetroricerca Glas & Modern in Bolzano, Italy, garnering a more comprehensive education in glass. 

Villamarin established and ran her own studio in Argentina from 2011 to 2015. The following year she went to work for The Cathedral Studios, the stained glass studio at Canterbury Cathedral, UK, followed by a stint at Barley Studio in York. Currently living in Munich, Germany, and working for Mayer’sche Hofkunstanstalt” GmbH, Villamarin focuses on portraiture painting on stained glass windows.

With a unique and international perspective on stained glass, Villamarin has been recognized by The Corning Museum of Glass, Corning New York, in its publication of cutting-edge glass, New Glass Review 33. She is also the recipient of last year’s Coburg Prize for Contemporary Glass for her work My Fragments, accompanied by an exhibition at Veste Coburg and at the European Museum of Modern Glass, Rödental, Germany. Focusing on new trends in glass art, the works of 90 international artists were on display at these venues in 2022. The highly topical objects and variety of production techniques made this show a fascinating event in the International Year of Glass. 

A 2016 recipient of the Stevens Glass Artist of the Year award, Villamarin was honored, along with other students and emerging architectural glass artists, at a ceremony at Glaziers’ Hall. From a record number of high-quality entries from the UK and other international entrants, Villamarin was presented with the opportunity to design a window commemorating the lost crew of the iconic Titanic for St Mary’s Church, Southampton. 

With uniquely personal works such as her painted self-portraits Time Without Time I and II; Resilience – made with glass, enamels and rope; or the many works that break free of the single flat plane of stained glass as seen in Free, Villamarin has left her mark on the world of modern stained glass. Having participated in the American Congress’ Women in Glass conference, the artist lends her voice to the independent work she designs and fabricates as well as to the work she paints for Mayer’sche Hofkunstanstalt” GmbH.

Charlene Foster a.k.a. Cha Cha Chainz represents the gold standard in glass chain making. A pioneer of the trend, she has been perfecting the art of flawless and seamless links since 2002. Foster has collaborated with the best in the game, building a bridge between fine art, fashion and functional glass. Her work has been featured in numerous fashion publications as she artfully merges the world of bespoke high fashion and cannabis accessories.

Born on an Air Force base in the Philippines and raised in Alaska, Foster attended the University of Alaska Anchorage studying Fine Art and Psychology. She worked for a glass artist in Anchorage whose assistant Courtney Brahnam introduced Foster to the summer session catalogs for Pilchuck, Penland and The Corning Museum of Glass. After applying and getting accepted to all three schools, Foster left home to travel the country, eventually settling in New York City in 2002. There, she began working for Michael Davis Glass on the production crew for a line of Tiffany & Company vases. Later, the artist assisted James McLeod during his fellowship at Wheaton Village, which led to her assisting a number of other instructors and eventually teaching her own class at UrbanGlass in Brooklyn. Her work was represented at SOFA New York and Chicago from 2007 to 2011 by UrbanGlass.

Over the years, Foster’s work has been featured in galleries and museums nationwide. Her glass chains have been auctioned at the National Liberty Museum, The UrbanGlass Blower’s Ball, Wheaton Arts and The Michigan Glass Project. She has collaborated with high-end pipe artists including Banjo, Salt, Rocko, Ryan Fitt and Robert Mickelson. Recent exhibitions include: 2022, Cleod Glass + Works, Charleston, SC; 2022, Pendants in Pink, Naturals Collective, Leominster, MA; 2020, Spring Equinox Show, Lifted Veil Gallery, DTLA, CA; 2019, “Garden of Eden” Zen Glass Gallery, Saint Petersburg, FL; and 2019, Molten Aura Show, Level 42, Asheville, NC.

Now based in North Carolina, Foster focuses on creating collaborative glass pieces, custom jewelry and glass joint holders she calls Stellaz for a wide range of shops across the country, and direct to customers through her website, http://www.chachachainz.com/

Architectural glass artist Elizabeth Devereaux traveled across the globe looking for an international education in art and architecture, from San Rafael to Vienna, then Munich. She founded her California studio in 1969, and more than 50 years later is an accomplished architectural glass artist with works installed all over the US and Canada. 

Devereaux states: “In an architectural setting, I always like to work in a site-specific way, noting the place and region itself, as well as the architectural style the artwork is in, the light, the interior and exterior environment. I work collaboratively, which then requires me to listen to the client/committee’s story, to define their identity and understand what has meaning for them, and then to synthesize all of the information within my own style and artistic vision.”

One of Devereaux’s most notable liturgical commissions, Christ Cathedral Memorial Gardens, Garden Grove, California, is located at an architectural pilgrimage destination. The Cathedral buildings are designed by three of the 20th century’s most significant architects – Philip Johnson, Richard Neutra, and Richard Meier. The new Memorial Gardens’ focus was to be “The Risen Christ” worshiped by two angels. It needed to be highly visible from the exterior, giving reference to life’s journey and connecting Baptism (in the Cathedral) to death and resurrection (in the Mausoleum). Relying on reflective light, 24-carat gold luster paint allowed the windows to be clearly seen from the Cathedral opposite, as well as in the Mausoleum, which was flanked by 12 large panels of amber stained and shaded clear glass. These 12 panels were fabricated by Derix Studio in Germany; the rest of the commission was fabricated in Devereaux’s Chico studio. Forty-four clerestory windows created in mouthblown cobalt streaky on clear German Lamberts glass link the interior rooms. Between each are prisms referring to the tower at the Cathedral.

In another major liturgical project, at Our Lady of New Clairvaux Abbey, Vina, California, Devereaux expressed The Cistercian charism of simplicity in a contemporary style with a reference to its ancient history. The new monastery at New Clairvaux was originally a 12^th-century monastery in Northern Spain. In the early 1930s William Randolph Hearst bought the monastery and imported it to California. Shortly afterwards, the Great Depression and World War II made it impossible for Hearst to build it, and he deeded it to the City of San Francisco. There it languished for 40 years behind the De Young Museum until Father Thomas Davis, a young monk newly arrived to the New Clairvaux Monastery, heard the story and had a vision of acquiring the stones for the new Abbey. The Abbey consulted with British and Spanish historians, and hired German stone carvers to re-form and recut the missing stones.

The art glass in 12-century European Cistercian monasteries is abstract, simple, and often soft amber and white in color. Devereaux’s windows appear simple at first glance, but in fact, are complex in their fabrication. The Fremont Antique glass was custom mouthblown to shade from white opak to clear, allowing the exterior landscape to be part of the design. It was also painted and kiln-fired with amber stain, then intersected vertically with handmade prisms. Since the monks worship during the day and night, the artist painted and fired a reflective 24-carat gold luster pattern onto the surface, bringing the translation of New Clairvaux or “Valley of Light” to life.

In San Francisco, for Noe Valley Ministry’s Coming to the Center window, Devereaux selected triple-flashed, mouth-blown glass, which was etched to the clear layer to portray the constellations. The transition from “sky” to “center” was accomplished by selecting custom blown rose to clear and purple to aqua glass. This allowed the glass to be sprayed and fired with orange luster, creating the subtle transition from lavender to amber. The amber “center” was leaded and laminated front and back with lead “overlay” “branches” to reference beloved artist Ruth Azawa’s twig-like cross in the sanctuary. The center spiral links to the labyrinth in the space.

Devereaux explains: “I always loved transparency—working with watercolor, silkscreen, overlaying color. When I discovered glass, I realized the incredible aspects of painting with light. Mouth-blown textures and color can be designed to meet direct sunlight and be projected in mysterious ways across the interior space. Or if the window is facing an unwanted view, it is possible to use translucent glass, allowing light in, but not the view or the glare. I also love the use of reflective materials, polished metals, in conjunction with glass, but sometimes mirror, and 24-carat gold, silver, and platinum lusters sprayed and fired onto glass. This allows the window to have a nightlife, different from the day. I also love pattern, making a “logo” or distillation of the meaning of the commission, then repeating it into a fabric woven into the artwork.”

Devereaux has always been active in her architectural and liturgical communities, serving on the National Advisory Board of Interfaith Forum on Religion, Art, and Architecture (IFRAA), a Knowledge Community of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) from 2009- 2014 and as a Juror for Faith & Forum/ IFRAA Religious Art & Awards, Seattle, WA, 2005. Her own IFRAA and Faith and Form awards include: 2018 Honor Award for Religious Art in New Clairvaux Abbey, Vina, CA; 2018 Codaworx Liturgical Art Award, Holy Family Catholic Church, Fond du Lac, WI.; 2008 Design Merit Award, St. Maximilian Kolbe, Westlake Village, CA; 2006 Design Honor Award, Blessed Trinity, Frankenmuth, MI; 1992 Visual Arts Award, St. Joseph Cathedral, San Jose, CA. She has also been presented with Ministry & Liturgy Annual Visual Art Awards, Bene & Best of Show in 2008, 2005, 2003, 2000, 1999, 1998, 1997, 1996, 1994, 1992. 

Devereaux’s non-liturgical commissions are numerous and include New Mexico Behavioral Health Institute, Las Vegas, New Mexico, for which she won a Public Art Award; George Sim Community Center, Sacramento, California, Public Art Award; and Chico City Plaza, Chico, California, Design consultant team and Public Art Award. Her present commission is Dignity French Hospital Swanson Chapel in San Luis Obispo, CA, and includes 700 square feet of laminated art glass.

Devereaux and her studio crew – Owen Gabbert, longtime project manager, Marie Swanson, Devereaux’s son, Chris Tallant, and nephew, Abraham Devereaux – are responsible for many public art, hospital, and corporate commissions. Though her studio’s main focus remains liturgical commissions, every window designed is site specific and custom made for that specific place. Devereaux knows how to listen and let inspiration find her, in a melding of her talent with the soul of each location.

Capitalizing on the ways glass can be arranged in and flows from a crucible, Nathan Sandberg creates reproducible decorative cane and murrine using the Vitrigraph Kiln. His work showcases these elements in a variety of artistic applications and furnishings. When not in his North Portland studio creating work or getting ready for an exhibition, Sandberg can be found presenting modern, innovative curriculum in kilnformed glass at a wide variety of studios and schools around the globe.

In 2003, Sandberg received his BFA in glass and ceramics from Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. After working at private glassblowing studios and independently furthering his education in kiln-glass, he joined Bullseye Glass Co. in 2005. As a member of the company’s Research & Education team, he taught and developed courses and online educational videos as well as assisted visiting artists. Beginning at the Bullseye factory in 2009, the artist began exploring modern Vitrigraph methods that have become the primary techniques used in the creation of his work. 

Sandberg creates glass panes that are full of movement and repeated patterns that gently guide the viewer’s eyes through the work. He states: “Our world is complex. And I realize that occasionally we simply need a pleasant view in order to escape some of the ugliness and take ourselves somewhere healthier, even if only for a moment.”

In 2012, Sandberg founded Nathans LLC. This educational entrepreneurship helped establish him as one of the top kiln-glass educators in the world, sending him on teaching adventures from Santa Fe to Zurich and Australia to Norway. In 2015, Nathans LLC moved out of the basement and into a proper studio space in the Kenton neighborhood of North Portland. Today, Sandberg uses OnGrade Studio as his home base and can be found there relentlessly producing work for exhibitions and developing new curriculum to teach on the road and online. 

Using primarily glass, Sandberg’s installations commonly make use of other materials such as wood, metal and concrete. His artwork can be found in private and public collections around the world and has received critical recognition through awards, exhibitions, and art fairs, including Glazen Huis in Lommel, Belgium, 2nd Place Non-Functional, Academic Award WG@BE3: E-merge, Bullseye Connection Gallery and SOFA Chicago. Sandberg worked with Gabriela Wilson as part of an Instructor Collaborative Residency at The Studio of the Corning Museum of Glass in September 2019. The duo explored the traditional hot shop methods of pulling cane to compare and contrast the process with Vitrigraph methods.

Currently, Sandberg operates an 8’ x 10’ waterjet two days a week and says this equipment will revolutionize what is possible in kilnformed glass. The artist is also in the design phase of a glass shingle backsplash for a 30-foot-tall residential waterfall project. His artwork will be on view at Guardino Gallery in Portland in September 2023 and in October at the Pittsburgh Glass Center with Amanda Simmons, Nancy Callan, Mel Douglas and Corey Pemberton in an exhibition titled Pattern.

Exploring the separation between reality and the imaginary through the use of miniatures and glass sculpture, John Sharvin draws the viewer into a new and intimate realm, reminiscent of a shadowbox or dollhouse. These dreamlike worlds create deceptive memories and locations for the viewer to reflect on as recollection of a place or memory is often distorted through the lens of time. One wonders what is conjured and what is true. 

Working in glass since late 2008, Sharvin graduated from The Ohio State University in 2012 with a BFA in glass. He stayed in Columbus for a few years working in galleries, doing public glass demonstrations and tutoring students until he took a technician apprenticeship at the Pittsburgh Glass Center (PGC) in 2014. There, he curated his first exhibition, Silica Valley, for which he developed a theme, selected the artists, titled the exhibition, and did all of the installation and lighting. The result was a show that revealed the possibilities of combining an ancient material like glass with 21st-century processes like 3D printing.

Utilizing digital fabrication techniques such as 3D printing and CNC milling in his own work, Sharvin creates unique and unexpected forms in glass that include not only surrealist landscapes and motifs, but glass animals infused with detail, realism, and a hint of cuteness. He has exhibited at several galleries including Fuller Craft Museum, Lake Erie Art Museum, and Hawk Galleries, and his work has been published in New Glass Review and Dwell Magazine. 

Following two successful seasons of Blown Away, Sharvin applied to be cast in Season 3. Nine other contestants joined him at North America’s largest hot shop in Hamilton, Ontario, to create and exhibit glass work directed by briefs that included topics such as outer space, the circus, and Seven Deadly Sins. In each episode, the glassblowers had to impress the evaluators or risk being eliminated. At stake was a life-changing prize that could send their careers to new heights. 

Sharvin states: “Things were not going my way, and I saw this as a great opportunity to change up my life.” 

Participating in the six-week show required Sharvin and the other contestants to come up with a fully articulated design, talk about it, write about it and then make it in “the hottest studio” ever. Competing against each other for $60,000 in prizes, the contestants filmed 10 episodes in succession, getting only one day off during the six-week shoot due to the tight production schedule.

Sharvin said: “Being a contestant on Blown Away Season 3 was an incredible experience. It was hot and challenging but was a truly life-changing time for me.” 

Leaving his full-time employment at PGC in mid 2022 to be a full-time artist, Sharvin now applies to public art projects and is establishing his CNC mold-making business. His current work is on view now in UNDEFINED, which runs until July 30, 2023, at PGC, along with the work of fellow Blown Away Season 3 contestants John Moran and Minhi England.

In 2021, Sharvin, England, and Moran were gathered in a backstage production set with seven other familiar faces. Each participant was invited to compete hoping to find new opportunities and to open creative pathways into new beginnings. Five weeks later, these three were the remaining finalists. Though Sharvin, England and Moran initially came together as competitors, their shared experiences on the show influenced comradery and mutual support. Since the premiere of the series, they have stayed in touch artistically through PGC’s Artist Residency program, giving them an opportunity to collaborate as artists. This collaborative exhibition contradicts the notion of competition in the glass world. 

With her unique sculptural works, Ann Wolff holds a distinguished place as one of the world’s leading artists working with glass. She applies her strongly personal approach to bronze, aluminum and concrete sculpture, as well as to drawing, pastel work and photography. From April through October 2022, Prince Eugen’s Waldemarsudde, one of Sweden’s most popular art museums, presented a solo exhibition of Wolff’s work in several techniques and media from the year 2000 until the present day. VOGUE Scandinavia nominated the show as one of the 10 best fall exhibitions in Scandinavia. It was also the largest showing of her work presented in Sweden.

Wolff states: “I have seen my works in painting, stone, bronze, concrete, and glass as equal in status. Sometimes I feel that my strongest works might be in paper, charcoal and pastels.” 

She continues: “I feel as a human being out of time. The notion of self and hence identity, grips me, disturbs me and motivates me. Everything comes from that. My interest in the self includes the others. It is clear that in the way that one carries out one’s work, something like a self expresses itself. And this self is guided by constantly developing insights. The insights can be very unclear but can still be the inspiration behind a work. I am testing out old questions of identity; be it inside-outside, symmetry, layers and core, number two and the double, the goat and the monkey. Moments of recognition are what my work needs, they propel me forward. Collected moments of clarity become knowledge.”

Born in Germany in 1937, Wolff studied at the Hochschule für Gestaltung (University of Design and Art) in Ulm, Germany, then worked as a designer in Sweden. For many years, she designed for the Kosta Boda glassworks, during which time she also pursued an independent career as a studio artist. Currently living and working on the Baltic island of Gotland, Sweden, she is the recipient of several internationally prestigious distinctions including the Lifetime Achievement Award from Glass Art Society and the PRO EUROPA Foundation’s European Culture Prize. She has been honored with numerous international awards, among them the renowned Coburger Glaspreis (1977), the Bayerischen Staatspreis (1988), the Jurypreis of the Toledo Museum of Art (2005), and the Award of Excellence of the Smithsonian Renwick Collection, Washington, DC (2008). The Swedish Royal family has acquired several of her works.

As one of the founders of the international Studio Glass movement, Wolff was at the center of attention as early as end of the 1960s. Her initiation into the American Studio Glass movement came at the invitation of Marvin Liposfsky and Dale Chihuly. Early days at Pilchuck sharing ideas and techniques revealed to her a new reality – one in which she was respected as an artist not a designer. 

Wolff States: “The Studio Glass movement from the United States burst in on my work – my isolation – in the mid 1960s. I was astonished and thrilled by the freedom with which glass was handled there. An immense curiosity about the unused potential and the broad possibilities of the new material for art: glass. It has to fit into the framework of art in general, though. For me, art is the deciding factor. The path I took shows that I intensely wanted to express my life in pictures, clarify things for myself. Of course, I could have started in a quite different medium – painting, sculpture, film – but it became glass.”

In her 50-year career, Wolff repeatedly created works that made people think. With glass, she allowed the world to glance at her esthetic sentimentality, and she also created homogenous objects. Ever recurring themes predominant in her work are womanhood and habitation expressed through objects that are mostly monochrome, often in warm earthy tones. Dance-theater was a strong inspiration, and she was allowed to attend rehearsals with Pina Bausch, made views from what she saw there and then formed glass objects.

Wolff brings out the special characteristics of glass: contours, surfaces, the relation between inside and outside. She makes inner landscapes visible. What lies behind the mask? The artist has asked herself this question again and again over the years. The psychology behind the facade is a regular theme of her works. Investigating further the subject of Wolff’s blown and engraved bowls and cast sculptures, one finds that the relationships between women as friends, and as mothers and daughters, and the role of women in society deeply concern her. She writes: “It is natural to take oneself as one’s starting point. The situation of women partly determines who I am and leads me to pose particular questions.”

Daniel Collins has spent more than 20 years directing award-winning documentary films that examine the untold stories of innovative artists, unsung activists, and underground subcultures. He has strong roots in the glass art community, producing work that focuses on both the American Studio Glass movement and the often-misunderstood borosilicate pipe movement. He began his filmmaking career at the Delaware-based nonprofit media initiative Hearts and Minds Film in 2001, founded Dan Collins Media in 2014, and launched Fire Team Films, which focuses exclusively on glass-related content, in 2022.

In October, Collins’ latest film Slinger debuted on Amazon and Vimeo on Demand. Aaron Golbert, aka Marble Slinger, embodies the artistic evolution and cultural revolution of the American glass pipe movement. He began making pipes in the 1990s, learning well-kept craft secrets from a few generous mentors, at a time when making “drug paraphernalia” could still land you in jail. Now, 25 years later, he is revered for his unique and ever-changing pipe aesthetics, his bold forays into the world of pop-art (especially his “Assault Girl” designs; Warhol-inspired mashups of the Morton Salt Logo), and perhaps above all for his documentary film, Degenerate Art: The Art and Culture of Glass Pipes (2012). This groundbreaking film premiered at the legendary SXSW Film Festival and enjoyed a two-year run as a top-ranked documentary on Netflix, giving audiences around the world the first detailed look into the underground glass pipe subculture. 

Says Slinger: “I’ve always seen glass pipe making as an extension of legalization activism, a protest, saying we believe that cannabis is beautiful!”

Slinger studied film at Ithaca College in upstate New York, but when he first glimpsed the mysterious glass pipes that began popping up on Grateful Dead and Phish tour in the mid-90s he was hooked. Devoted to outlaw cannabis culture, and hungry for an alternative to mainstream life, Slinger headed to Seattle to learn the art of pipe making. He has since become an artistic icon in a scene which has turned into a billion-dollar industry. This film tells the story of his life’s journey in a deep, personal way, while following him through a frigid Philadelphia winter as he prepares for a rare solo exhibition in sunny California. Directed by long-time friend and award- winning filmmaker Collins, the film offers a unique glimpse into Slinger’s world, inviting audiences to intimately experience the many challenges an artist faces in the pursuit of passion. 

“You don’t need to go to film school, you need to live a life worthy of making a film about:” states Slinger.

Collins is best known in the glass-pipe community for being the editor of Marble Slinger’s opus Degenerate Art: The Art & Culture of Glass Pipes(2012). He has since gone on to direct three more feature-length glass documentaries:  Project 33 (2017): chronicling the work of Oregon Artist Marcel Braun; Art That Gives Back (2023): the story of the Michigan Glass Project, which will release at their event in September 2023; and most recently Slinger (2022): a portrait of the artist who originally introduced Collins to the world of glass art.

Currently in production on two exciting new documentary films about glass, Collins journeyed to the outskirts of Havana to document the nascent studio glass movement in Cuba, and hopes to complete his film, ¡FUEGO! soon.

Find the trailer here: https://youtu.be/UlKsyWLOqkY

Beginning in January 2023, Collins turned his lens on American glass master Paul Stankard, to produce an intimate artist portrait with the help of Stankard’s long-time colleague, David Graeber.

Collins’ work has won many awards, premiered at prestigious festivals, and been distributed internationally. He is also a published poet, recording artist, and faculty member at the traditional-arts nonprofit organization Common Ground on the Hill (McDaniel College, Westminster, MD) where he is the co-founder of the Common Ground Veterans Initiative, a program that promotes healing through the arts for combat veterans.

Comprised of hundreds of objects fabricated using multiple glass processes, Between Seeing and Knowing is a large-scale, site-specific installation by artists Anna Boothe and Nancy Cohen. The installation is on view now through February 5, 2023 at Bergstrom-Mahler Museum of Glass, Neenah, Wisconsin. Created as part of a collaborative residency that took place at the Studio of the Corning Museum of Glass (CMoG) in 2012, the artwork has been previously exhibited at Accola Griefen Gallery, New York, the Philadelphia Art Alliance, and Philadelphia’s International Airport.

At its core, Between Seeing and Knowing is the result of both artists’ long-standing interest in and in-depth study of Tibetan Buddhist thangka paintings and the integration of their otherwise very separate studio practices. Thangkas are ordered cosmological paintings, often scrolls, created for the purpose of meditation and composed of numerous visual elements. This installation reinterprets the symbolism in the paintings to create new work that reflects the organizational structure and palette of the paintings, as well as the sense of expansiveness and lack of hard resolution characteristic of Buddhist ideology. 

Boothe and Cohen state: “Overall, through this collaboration, its subject matter, and our chosen methodology, we seek to understand, both visually and viscerally, another cultural perspective or expression unlike our own, through our dissection and re-assemblage of elements unique to that culture. Just as collaboration brings forth the opportunity for a deep exchange of ideas and the development of sympathetic approaches to doing what one does, pragmatically and metaphorically, this is our attempt at bridging gaps between cultural approaches to explain the unexplainable.”

With degrees in sculpture from Rhode Island School of Design and glass from Tyler School of Art/Temple University, Boothe has worked with glass since 1980. Included in the permanent collections of CMoG, Racine Art Museum and Tacoma Museum of Art, her cast glass work has been exhibited widely, including recently at the Albuquerque Art Museum, Fuller Craft Museum, Kemerer Museum of Decorative Arts and the Hotel Nani Mocenigo Palace in Venice, as well as at several villas in Italy’s Veneto Region.

Boothe taught in Tyler’s glass program for 16 years, helped develop and chaired Salem Community College’s glass art program and has exhibited and/or lectured internationally in Australia, Belgium, Israel, Italy, Japan, Switzerland, Taiwan and Turkey, as well as at numerous US universities and glass-focused schools. She served on the Board and as President of the Glass Art Society from 1998-2006 and is a former Director of Glass at Philadelphia’s National Liberty Museum.    

With an MFA in Sculpture from Columbia University and a BFA in Ceramics from Rochester Institute of Technology, Cohen has been working with glass (among other materials) since 1990. Her work examines resiliency in relation to the environment and the human body. Cohen’s work has been widely exhibited throughout the United States and is represented in collections such as The Montclair Museum, The Weatherspoon Art Gallery, and The Zimmerli Museum. She has completed large-scale, site-specific projects for The Staten Island Botanical Garden, The Noyes Museum of Art, The Katonah Museum, Howard University, and others.

Recent solo exhibitions include Walking a Line at Kathryn Markel Fine Arts in Chelsea, New York, and Nancy Cohen: Atlas of Impermanence at the Visual Arts Center in Summit, New Jersey. Group exhibitions include All We Can Save: Climate Conversations at the Nurture Nature Center in Easton, Pennsylvania, and ReVision and Respond at The Newark Museum. Cohen is a 2022 recipient of a Mid-Atlantic Fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. She currently teaches drawing and sculpture at Queens College.

In a review of Boothe and Cohen’s collaborative project, Elizabeth Crawford of N.Y Arts Magazine, wrote: : “Intuitively proximate to Buddhist philosophy, the piece is about the inter-relatedness of things. Each glass part appears sentient and in direct communication with the others. In a Thangka painting, none of the forms are meant to be isolated but work together to invite the viewer to take the painting in at once, as a whole. Similarly, all of the pieces in Boothe and Cohen’s installation contribute to a sense of continuous breath or movement which is enhanced by light reflecting through the glass.” For this innovative work the artists used an astounding range of glass processes including kiln-casting, slumping, fusing, blowing, hot-sculpting and sand-casting.

This year, flameworking pioneer Paul Stankard will celebrate his 80^th birthday. To commemorate more than six decades at the torch, the artist joined Talking Out Your Glass podcast for a return visit featuring a discussion about his contributions to glass and art, including his new book, Inspiration from the Art of Paul J. Stankard: A Window into My Studio and Soul.

Jack Wax, artist and head of the glass department at The Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia, wrote the following about Stankard’s latest and fourth book:

“Paul Joseph Stankard is the living master of the art of the botanical paperweight. There ought not to be any argument as to where he stands in the history of this endeavor, an undertaking that dates back to the mid-19th century and the famed Venetian glassmaker Pietro Bigaglia. He has, as a noted autodidact, aimed at elevating the production of these objects to stratospheric heights. His patient and long-term focus on capturing the subtle beauty of blossoms before they fade, and of bouquets that never wilt, has brought to the world marvels of observation, obsession, fixation, and, importantly, of invention. There is a tendency for people to gaze in wonder and become infatuated when encountering “impossible objects” for the first time. This has been his purview. 

That said, becoming a master in the world of 21st-century decorative art production might not ensure that your corollary endeavors—writing poetry and laying out the inexorably tied-up nature of beauty’s role in the success of an artwork—needs to be shared with posterity. Stankard’s voice is sincere and heartfelt. His choice of words is deeply weighed, his phrasing and pacing seriously considered. He is, after all, attempting to distill, out of the quickly dispersing mists of creativity, an essence, a tincture that will contain some drops of truth. That can, at times, become a dangerous area to interpret and translate for a broad swath of the population. Being great at one thing in no way guarantees that one is good at another… 

If you pick this book up, you will assuredly spend time considering the beauty of Paul Stankard’s botanical images in glass. He is a genuinely passionate, sincerely earnest maker who cares deeply for the natural world and has devoted a lifetime to the true intricacies of what is visible—and what is not—for those who persevere and cultivate what may be revealed in the application of an extraordinarily sustained and amplified focus.”

Considered a living master in the art of the paperweight, Stankard’s work is represented in more than 75 museums around the world. Over his 40-year artistic journey, he has received two honorary doctorate degrees, an honorary associate’s degree, and many awards within the glass community, most recently the Masters of the Medium Award from Smithsonian’s The James Renwick Alliance and the Glass Art Society’s Lifetime Achievement Award. He is a Fellow of the American Craft Council and a recipient of the UrbanGlass Award—Innovation in a Glassworking Technique.

In 1961, Stankard enrolled in Salem County Vocational Technical Institute’s Scientific Glassblowing program (now Salem Community College). During his subsequent 10-year scientific glassblowing career, fabricating complex instruments was his focus. As head of the glass department at Rohn & Haas in Philadelphia, the artist began experimenting with floral paperweights as a hobby. The work was eventually noticed by art dealer Reese Palley at a craft expo in Atlantic City, New Jersey, and in 1972, Stankard abandoned industry for art.

Stankard’s role as educator includes establishing the flameworking studio at Penland School of Craft, Spruce Pine, North Carolina, and serving as a founding board member and President of The Creative Glass Center of America, Millville, New Jersey. The artist taught students in the US at Penland; the Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, New York; Pilchuck Glass School, Stanwood, Washington; and abroad at Kanaz Forest of Creation Japan with Hiroshi Yamano as well as at North Lands Creative, in the Scottish Highlands. He remains an Artist-in-Residence and Honorary Professor at Salem Community College, where he founded the International Flameworking Conference.

Now dividing his time between flameworking and writing, Stankard is the author of Inspiration from the Art of Paul J. Stankard: A Window into My Studio and Soul; an autobiography No Green Berries or Leaves: The Creative Journey of an Artist in Glass; an educational resource Spark the Creative Flame: Making the Journey from Craft to Art; and Studio Craft as Career: A Guide to Achieving Excellence in Art-making. 

In March 2023, Stankard will once again attend the International Flameworking Conference (IFC). He will also be instructing a workshop with Lucio Bubacco in May. IFC details are at www.salemcc.edu/ifc and workshop info is at https://salemcc.edu/glass/intensive-glass-workshop

In celebration of his 80^th birthday, WheatonArts will host a Celebration of the Life & Work of Paul J. Stankard, Saturday, May 20, 2023. Click link below for the latest information. Campus-wide activities will be highlighted by collaborative Glass Studio demonstrations with Stankard and friends, curator tours of the Museum of American Glass featuring Amber Cowan’s solo exhibit Alchemy of Adornment, and special fare catered by Feast Your Eyes Catering. Proceeds benefit the WheatonArts Glass Studio programs. Dan Collins – documentary filmmaker with strong roots in the glass art community, producing work that focuses on both the American Studio Glass Movement and the often-misunderstood borosilicate pipe movement – filmed Stankard for a documentary that will be shown in May at the WheatonArts event. The film includes the artist creating a piece from his Celestial Bouquet series. Stankard’s work will be exhibited at the Morris Museum, a Smithsonian affiliate, in Morristown, New Jersey, in early 2023.

Seattle based artist working in glass and metal, MiNHi England was a finalist in Season 3 of the Blown Away series, which premiered on Netflix in July of 2022. She worked her way into the hearts of viewers with stunning glass design and technique as seen in works such as The Spectacular Bearded Dragon Lady or her collaborative installation with fellow contestant Dan Friday called One Million Scovilles.

Having earned her BFA from Alfred University in 2010, England has worked as a professional glassblower at numerous studios throughout the greater Seattle area. She now runs a hotshop named Liquid Lush Studio with her friend Bri Chesler, where the two friends create strange but beautiful glass-blown pieces that can be sold as gifts. The Seattle-based personality also continues in her roles as production manager at Artful Ashes and instructor at Pratt Fine Arts Center. With England’s current individual art practice focused heavily on her recent young widow status, she learns to navigate overwhelming loss, grief and life altering transition.

In 2012, Minhi met and married her late husband Jesse England at Pilchuck. The two bonded over a shared passion for combining glass and metal in a contemporary and conceptual fashion. Originally from Kansas, Jesse earned his BFA in Sculpture and Glass from Emporia State University in 2007. In 2013, he earned an MFA in Sculpture and Glass from the University of Texas at Arlington. Soon after meeting, Jesse and Minhi established an artist compound in which friends and colleagues could live and work. They eventually partnered with Artful Ashes to create iconic glass memorials.

In 2019, Jesse was diagnosed with MPNST (malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumor). To help fight the cancer, Jesse underwent a few different procedures including a below the knee amputation, radiation, chemotherapy, and trial drugs. Sadly, however, he passed away 18 months after his diagnosis and nine months after he and Minhi married. 

Despite his poor health, Jesse and Minhi married on September 5, 2020. Minhi wore a $30-dress and cowboy boots she got when the couple went on their first trip to Texas. In an Instagram post, she talked about the impact Jesse had on her life. “You have believed in me when I didn’t believe in myself, encouraged me, and lifted me up in my darkest days. We’ve shared some of my most cherished memories, and you will forever have my whole heart. You have shown me abundant generosity and kindness despite my many shortcomings. I am grateful for your bountiful love and devotion.”

From the depths of grief, England gathered her strength and faced new challenges before the eyes of the world. She joined the cast of Blown Away – the Netflix reality competition series that she and Jesse used to watch together. She said: “Jesse was the one who encouraged me to do it. That was his last gift to me.”  

Along with the great success Minhi experienced on Blown Away, the artist has been awarded several artist residencies including the Hauberg Residency at Pilchuck Glass School, the Hilltop Artists Residency in Tacoma, and she has exhibited work at Bellevue Art Museum. Presently, she has an upcoming immersive gallery installation set to open in early 2023 at Method Gallery in Seattle as well as a group exhibition with fellow Blown Away artists John Sharvin and John Moran titled, Undefined, opening on February 3 at Pittsburgh Glass Center Gallery. 

England states: “When I use glass in my work, I find myself personifying the material, giving it permission to embody self. The unique properties of hot glass allow me to generate a sense of vitality when I force my own breath inside. This action further connects me to the process. Although I set the stage, there are moments that happen outside of my control, metaphorically illustrating the human experience. Choosing when to relinquish control creates opportunity for evolution.”

Stanton Studios, expanded from the well-known Stanton Glass Studio, was founded in 1979 by Bryant J. Stanton. Beginning with a workbench in a loft studio and a couple of crates of glass, the studio has grown into a nationally-recognized business with completed work in businesses and homes across Texas and the United States. In addition to Stanton, his four sons and their team of craftsmen operate Stanton Studios just north of Waco, Texas. 

Stanton began his journey into the world of art as a young adult in high school. When he wrote a research paper on Gothic Cathedrals, he became fascinated with stained glass and window bays. Later, attending Texas Tech then transferring to Baylor, Stanton studied 3-Dimensional Studio Art and found that he incorporated glass wherever possible in all of his art projects. But the young artist didn’t begin pursuing his passion until a fateful event occurred. 

When Stanton took an off campus walk, he discovered an old stained glass shop and met a man who changed his life by teaching him the craft. After making his first butterfly sun-catcher, the young Stanton was “instantly hooked.” He accepted a full-time job at The Warehouse working for Homer Owen and made inspirational gifts – sun-catchers with bible verses on them. 

In 1979, Stanton began his own business in a downtown Waco, Texas, shop and started calling churches and businesses, advertising his services. He received his first restoration job fixing up windows for Central Christian Church. His first two window commissions were created for Pelican’s Warf and the Brazos Landing; ironically, both waterfront restaurants wanted Pelican-themed windows looking out onto the Brazos River. 

Stanton taught his first child, Tiffany, the shop’s ways and how to handle glass. Soon after, Nathan and Jordan, the eldest sons, began learning their father’s trade. Jordan was “a little clone of his father” and quickly picked up the skills needed for creating glass. As assistant manager, he accompanied his father to meetings. Nathan, the eldest son, found that working with glass was not his passion and learned his own trade – woodworking. Tiffany eventually taught her younger sibling, Samuel, to work with glass, and he joined the shop as a grouter. 

As time passed, Stanton hired an in-house glass painter, Joe Barbieri, his wife Suzanne eventually became the bookkeeper, and Jordan became the official manager. Samuel also moved up from being in “the mud room” to being a builder. Tim, the youngest son, joined the shop as a builder, and Nathan helped to expand Stanton Glass Studio into Stanton Studios as he brought his woodworking abilities to the shop.

Since founding the business, Stanton has worked tirelessly designing and creating works in glass. The knowledge and experience gained have allowed him to complete iconic works that are not only breathtaking but magnificent feats to design and build. He and his family can tackle projects ranging from stained glass for churches, residences or businesses to huge sculptures for universities or giant glass domes for hotels. Stanton says he most enjoys projects that are big and challenging, such as the 3-story long DNA sculpture that hangs suspended in a stairwell in the McLennan Community College Sciences Building in Waco, the iconic dome of the Driskill Hotel in Austin, and the restoration of the priceless Louis Comfort Tiffany windows for a Galveston church.

Stanton has come a long way from that first butterfly suncatcher. He and his family are always learning more and continuing to find new challenges in creating the most beautiful art glass. Due to their success, Stanton has served on several community boards, including the Waco Chamber of Commerce and the Waco Art Center. He is the current president of the Stained Glass Association of America (SGAA) and also served as the past Editorial Chair of Stained Glass Quarterly magazine. SGAA’s 2023 conference will be held in Buffalo, New York, September 27 through October 1.

As Stanton Studios continues to hire more builders and expand, its founder hopes that the business will live on through his sons, who are now in charge of teaching the new hires the skills involved with stained glass making – keeping the art and craft of stained glass alive.

ott Deppe, pioneer in the functional glass art scene for three decades, brings an artistic vision to glassblowing that parallels that of influential artists of other media. Adept at evolving techniques, he quickly mastered traditional moves like reticellos and disk flips and innovated techniques of his own to achieve alien function and incorporate intricate detail and sacred geometry into his glass work. Most recently, his exploration has culminated in silver and gold fumed hologram glass that transforms finished pieces into deep illustrative tapestries.

Born in Idaho, Deppe moved to Bellingham, Washington, the year before he started making pipes. He encountered his first blown glass pipe at a Grateful Dead show in 1993. On his way home, he stopped at a local hardware store, bought a torch and some glass, set up in his living room and melted a couple of spoon pipes, trying to recreate a piece he had fallen in love with at the Dead show – a little spoon with a mushroom bead on the side. Deppe says: “I had a natural ability to deconstruct things with my mind. Through experimentation, I often came up with better, easier ways of doing things.” 

Other than an early goblet class with Brian Kerkvliet, Deppe is self-taught and well-known for his constant experimentation on the torch resulting in early mind-blowing solo works such as Take Me to the Mothership, his Deady Bear piece, and his collaborative Team Japan works – all of which expanded how people thought about glass and how much they were willing to spend on pipe art. Since then, he has done collabs with many industry greats.

Deppe is the founder of Mothership –  a glass artist collective with a mission to create the best functional glass in the galaxy. The Mothership first landed on Earth in 2013, making contact in the Pacific Northwest. Its team of glass artists and crew constantly push the boundaries to make creations that combine beauty and sophistication into functional glass art. The company prides itself on passion for both the artform and cannabis culture, resulting in every piece being handcrafted with love.

When it comes to a consensus on who is the most talented glass artist within the industry, you will be hard pressed to find one with more mentions than Deppe, a true master of the art form. Holding a Deppe piece, one marvels at the precision of his craftsmanship. While many artists are cornering a niche market with a trademark style, this artist has always been one to display a breathtaking ability to master any technique.

Legacy GlassWorks Gallery in Duluth, MN will feature Mothership Glass on Saturday, December 3, 2022  https://www.legacyglassworks.com/pages/upcoming-events-2

Legends of Hash will also feature Mothership from Dec 2 – 3, 2022 in Los Angeles.  https://www.legendsofhashish.com/projects-6  Deppe will attend this event.

Says Deppe: “I just want to do something different, always. It’s what feels good.”

James Devereux’s Clovis Collection is the result of labored experiments by the artist to literally chip hot glass like stone. Having perfected this unusual technique, he produces breathtaking, monolithic objects with smooth lines juxtaposed with fractured edges. Creating these pieces in subtle tones places the focus on the texture and form of each component.

Devereux states: “A blow too hard would simply shatter the piece, too light a tap would crush the surface. After flame polishing, the meandering edges despite their appearance are not sharp, but smooth to the touch.”

Having worked with many prominent names within the industry in a host of roles including collaborating artist, facilitator, instructor and demonstrator, Devereux’s impact within British and international glass to date has been far reaching. Positioned as one of the most active glass artists currently working in the UK, it is the unique combination of abundant skills and technique with an eye for detail that has made him a highly respected and sought-after glass craftsman. 

Starting in the industry at the age of 15 thanks to a work experience placement at Bath Aqua Glass, Devereux worked at a crystal factory making stemware, tableware and gifts. He subsequently studied glass for three years at Wolverhampton University before opening his first hotshop in the inspiring Wiltshire countryside. In 2009, Devereux took a job as the glass technician at the Royal College of Art (RCA) in London before attending the college as a student. He states: “RCA opened my eyes to everything else going on in glass, including new contacts and opportunities that remain at the core of my career.”

After leaving London in 2013, Devereux and fellow glass artist Katharine Huskie established a new studio together. Devereux and Huskie Glassworks is a custom-built studio dedicated to creating innovating and exciting glass for designers and artists from the UK and overseas. Over the years, Devereux and Huskie Glassworks has become known for large-scale glass sculpture that pushes the boundaries of the material. Devereux also sells glass tools and supplies through his business, Glass Toolbox. Visit https://www.glasstoolbox.co.uk.

Devereux and US artist David Patchen first met through social media and at the Glass Art Society’s (GAS) conference in Murano, but their unique collaboration didn’t officially begin until 2019 in San Francisco. United in harmony, their collaborative artworks combine Patchen’s murrine patterns and Devereux’s intrinsic forms. Making their first collaborative Clovis sculpture at a fundraising party and their second during a demo for hundreds of people at GAS Tacoma, their relationship continued during Covid with Patchen shipping pattern blanks from San Francisco to Devereux in the UK. Patchen makes murrine with color combinations he’s interested in exploring – cutting and arranging different pieces together to achieve the perfect mosaic for blowing. Devereux then uses these intricate patterns to sculpt and breathe life into the artwork. 

Says Patchen: “My collaboration with James has been going strong over the past year. We began this project just before the pandemic and have completed a dozen sculptures without the benefit of working in the studio together. We communicate via text and email with me making the patterns in San Francisco and shipping James patterned murrine blanks (thick densly-patterned cups) which he heats up in his studio in England to create the finished sculptural forms. Aside from being distinctive and beautiful forms, a particularly interesting aspect of these is the hot-chipped edge. James creates this edge texture by carefully hammering the sculpture while the glass is hot on the punty, chipping away chunks of glass, exposing the interior and creating the scalloped edge. You can see a short video on my Instagram of James chipping the second Clovis we made in San Francisco at the beginning of our collaboration.”

Devereux is currently exploring a new series, Diodes, continuing his look at collectable obsolete objects. These works combine multiple materials, processes and skills as well as distorted Morse code to look at what we consider current or outdated technology or communication. Having just returned from Biot International Glass Festival, and travels to Sweden and Istanbul, the artist discusses his history and works in glass. 

Vivian Wang is an American sculptor of Chinese descent, who is inspired by the art of ancient China and Japan. With Asian features and formal poses, her figures are always elaborately clothed in garments replete with Asian patterns and motifs. The style and color of the clothing has been greatly influenced by her previous career as a fashion designer. The “textile-like” surfaces of her work are purposely distressed or antiqued. Wang uses glass components for the hands, feet and heads of her figures, which imbues them with an intangible quality. Together, these elements give the sculptures a haunting look, mirroring the paintings and sculptures of ancient China and Japan.

All of Wang’s pieces are now extravagantly embellished with semi-precious stones and crystals. This reflects the opulence and pageantry of court life in ancient Asia. Even the Samurai warrior wears the most resplendent armor covered with an overwhelming number of garnets and moonstones. The use of these semi-precious stones is a new direction in her art, one which she intends to develop further.

Wang states: “It is difficult to place my art, sometimes referred to as Asian Figurative Sculpture, neatly into the spectrum of the art world as it is both old and new. Ancient in its origins, subjects and some of its materials, my work is also contemporary in its use of cast glass as a significant element of its design. In ancient times, figurative sculpture was made in ceramics, stone and wood, and I have followed that tradition by using clay for my bodies. In old China, glass was used only for religious artifacts and decorative ornaments; its purpose to mimic jade. In contrast, I employ glass as glass to create my heads, hands and feet, a contemporary use of materials.”

A former New York fashion designer, Wang was inspired to become a sculptor after seeing work by Akio Takemori. One lucky day, sometime around the turn of the new millennium, she walked into Garth Clark’s Gallery on West 57th Street in New York City to see Takemori’s sculptures. She knew then that viewing that exhibition would change her life.

“Perhaps my interest in ceramics is what took me to Akio Takemori’s exhibition that day,” says Wang. “From the moment I saw Akio’s pieces, I was hooked. I was literally transfixed by his work. The exhibition consisted of a dozen ceramic figures, about two or three feet in height, of the people he remembered from the Japanese village he had lived in as a child. I had never seen anything like them. My embrace of Akio’s work made me want to do what he did, to become a sculptor, to create my own figurative pieces.”  

At the time, Wang was living in New York and working as a fashion designer for Jones, New York – a large, corporate, not “very creative”, clothing manufacturer. Several years earlier, Wang had sold her own design firm because small fashion companies could no longer compete against the large corporations. To satisfy her creative needs, she began experimenting with ceramics, casting plates, bowls and cups, and painting intricate Chinese scenes and people on them. For several years, she continued her career as a designer, but with some encouragement from her husband, she took a giant leap and quit her job to become a sculptor.

For a while, Wang stayed in New York, taking live model sculpture classes. But in 2007, she and her husband moved to West Palm Beach, Florida, where she became an artist. Early works included first American children, called Ragamuffins. Then she moved on to Chinese and Japanese courtiers and children. By 2009, Wang had produced enough work to have her first exhibition at Stewart Fine Art Gallery in Boca Raton, Florida. Her sculpture sold well there, and three years later she was invited to join Habatat Galleries. “Since then, I have been creating sculptures as quickly as humanly possible – and having a wonderful life doing so,” Wang says. 

Wang’s sculpture can be found in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian Renwick Gallery, Washington, D.C.; Imagine Museum, St. Petersburg, Florida; Barry Art Museum, Norfolk, Virginia; Fort Wayne Museum, Fort Wayne, Indiana; and Boca Raton Museum of Art, Boca Raton, Florida. She has been honored with the “Artist of the Future Award” by Imagine Museum, St. Petersburg, Florida, 2019; Fort Wayne Museum of Art Award, 45th International Glass Invitational Award Exhibition, 2017; Art Palm Beach Award for Excellence in Creativity, 2017; Fort Wayne Museum of Art Award, 2015; the 43rd International Glass Invitational Award Exhibition, Habatat Galleries, Royal Oak, Michigan; and Outstanding Glass Artist of 2013, Florida Glass Art Alliance, Miami, Florida.

Six years ago, Hannah Gregory, owner of Bad Ass Stained Glass, Cervantes, Western Australia, was puttying windows for free in exchange for education in stained glass. In October 2022, the artist spent a month at the renowned Judson Studios, Los Angeles, California, working with some of the best glass painters in the world as well as artists working with glass in non-traditional ways. This was made possible through a fellowship awarded to Gregory by the International Specialized Skills Institute of Australia.

Growing up in Western Australia, Gregory enjoyed a childhood spent by the ocean, around cray-fishing boats and fishing off of the beach. With no fine arts education, she has always been an outsider artist, making irreverent, bold works in painting, drawing, printing and photography until her mid 20s when she became focused entirely on working with glass. 

Since 2016, stained glass has been the planet on which Gregory wakes and sleeps. She has now trained, worked, studied and travelled extensively in the US, Europe, and Australia resulting in a comprehensive and contrasting repertoire of both Medieval and innovative skills and techniques for working with stained glass. Residencies have been awarded to Gregory by the Australia Council of the Arts, the International Specialized Skills Institute, the Western Australian Department of Local Government, Sport and Cultural Industries, and the American Glass Guild. 

A passionate advocate for a more diverse, inclusive and engaging future for stained glass, Gregory is also determined to undermine the outdated expectations and connotations of her beloved craft. Gregory states: “I believe stained glass needs to be where people don’t expect it. It needs to say things people don’t expect it to say. It needs to ask questions. It needs to be in architecture/ outside of architecture. It needs to be thought provoking and collaborative.”

Currently living with her husband in the small fishing town of Cervantes on unceded Yued land, Gregory enjoys working on both architectural commissions and experimental autonomous works. She served as International Artist in Resident at the well-known Swansea College of Art in the UK for what was supposed to be one year, but ended up being two due to Covid. At the beginning of 2022, she returned to Australia where she was awarded a six-month residency at the Fremantle Arts Centre, resulting in a new body of work focused on seaweed. Her work can be found in architecture and private collections across the world.

Upon her return to Australia from Judson Studios, Gregory begins work on two large jellyfish windows, a complex commission for a wildlife photographer and videographer in Oregon for 12 animal skylights, an ongoing larger job in Melbourne that will be her largest job to date, and her Steven’s competition window. She has also just received seed money from the UN International Year of Glass to run some lead lighting workshops for people in regional Australia and is hoping to start glass painting workshops in her studio. She enjoys sharing her passion for glass through teaching and workshops when she can.

Believing that stained glass is a having a bit of a renaissance and hasn’t reached its full potential, Gregory and husband Kris are experimenting with traditional wet plate collodion photography on glass and its applications for stained glass. Other recent projects have included two windows for a door depicting a large protea, some commissioned tattoo designs and some small memorial windows. 

Says Gregory: “My work is guided by the concept of transformation from destruction. Stained glass is one of the most enduring artforms in the western world, and its creation hinges on breaking glass, manipulating metals, burning pigment. Every act in fabricating a piece of my work relies on destruction. In its very essence, the building and durability of stained glass relies on a balanced mix of the fragility of glass, and the strength of lead.”

As a storyteller, John Moran’s work is constructed from a series of anecdotes, references, and experiences. While he draws ties to American pop culture, politics, and social issues, it’s not done arbitrarily. The artist attempts to illustrate how he sees the barrage of consumerism, religion, and politics colliding with depictions of social injustice, secular beliefs, and popular culture. These hot sculpted works pack an emotional punch through unforgettable imagery as seen in pieces such as New Times Roman and Sale of the Deathman.

Moran States: “I myself am a product of all of these things; I am American, and America was founded on dissent. To paraphrase Picasso: my work is a collection of lies, hopefully helping the viewer realize the truth. Though for me the truth is not absolute, it is simply how I see the world. It is not necessarily an attempt at subversion, but more an attempt to reconcile, and in a way celebrate, the absurdity and hypocrisy of society.”

These attributes and ideologies made Moran’s appearance on the Netflix glassblowing competition series, Blown Away 3, a personal nod to irony. Originally from Philadelphia, the winner of Season 3 currently resides in Ghent, Belgium, where he directs Gent Glas, a community glass studio he co-founded in 2014. The mission of Gent Glas is to build an inclusive community of artists working to introduce glass as an artistic medium to the public. 

Receiving his BFA from Tyler School of Art and MFA from Illinois State University, Moran recently completed his PhD at Eugeniusz Geppert Academy of Art and Design in Wroclaw, Poland. He has participated in several international artist in residence programs including CGCA at WheatonArts, S12, GlazenHuis Lommel, and STARWorks. His work has been exhibited in many galleries and museums across the United States and Europe, including Habatat Galleries, SiC! Gallery, Glasmuseet Ebeltoft, and Delaware Contemporary. 

Since winning Blown Away 3, Moran has been extremely busy. October events included demonstrating at Michigan Hot Glass and a Meet the Artist event for the exhibition We Are Blown Away at Habatat Detroit Fine Arts. On October 21 at 7 p.m., Moran will give a public demonstration at the Pittsburgh Glass Center (PGC) alongside Minhi England and John Sharvin. Throughout the month of November, he will participate in Habatat’s online exhibition Not Grandmas Glass. His residency at Museum of Glass Tacoma runs from November 9 – 13. In 2023, an exhibition with England and Sharvin will be held at PGC in February and Moran’s Corning Museum of Glass residency – grand prize for winning Blown Away 3 – begins in April.

Of the inspiration for his glass sculpture, Moran states: “It may not seem autobiographical, but my experiences and observations are the genesis of my ideas. Each piece is a reaction to a specific event, but is not an illustration of it. I pull from everything around me. My own political and religious views, art, books, movies, family, and popular culture culminate into layers of seemingly random references, multiple components, and a visual overload that mimics our daily experience.”

Sibelle Yüksek aka Sibelley has made a name for herself in the flameworking and functional glass worlds through the creation of what she refers to as “little women.” After focusing primarily on nudes, she shifted her energies into making video game and anime characters outfitted with accessories and garments. One early complex piece took roughly 40 hours to make. This female rig outfitted with a machine gun is a glass representation of Motoko from Ghost In The Shell.

Considering the sculptural nature of her art, it’s not surprising that Sibelley majored in illustration at Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia, with the goal of working in fashion. But she fell in love with glass in an elective casting course and decided to double major in glass studies – an artform that would come in handy for sculptural installations and jewelry making.

Moving to Los Angeles, California, in 2014, Sibelley set up a torch in an ill-advised bedroom studio, where she made jewelry until landing a gig at Neptune Glassworks. There, she learned how to make vessels and glassware while experimenting with smokables on the side. The artist credits 2 Stroke with her move into functional glass. While assisting him at his AGE show, he pointed out the many benefits of transitioning into the pipe scene. 

In 2018, it all came together for Sibelley after taking a master class with OG flameworker, Robert Mickelsen, who taught her how to refine her sculpting with holloware. “I spent so many years studying the figure in illustration, doing live drawings, looking at comic books, drawing and drawing and drawing. So, the body has always been with me. But when I took his class, everything fell into place. I know how to work with glass and I know bodies, so he was the glue that put it together for me.”

Most of Sibelley’s work is marketed through her Instagram, where she has built a growing following. The artist is still trying to figure out where her pieces fit in to the pipe scene and the art world – should they be found in head shops and smoke shops, or interior design settings? Should they be functional or sculptural? Carly Fisher, Leafly.com, wrote: “There’s something daring and uniquely fitting about a woman facing the flames, not adhering to preconceived notions about how a pipe should look or devaluing its legitimacy as art because it can be used for cannabis. If anything, it’s another example of the limitless ways people are reexamining and elevating cannabis culture to a broader market.”

Combining influences from her teen obsessions with Japanese comic books and gaming, experiences with yoga and bodywork, and her education in fashion illustration, Sibelley’s delicate, naturalistic interpretations of female bodies that double as a pipe put her on the map. She recently held her first solo show at Glass2Grass in Miami on September 4, and she will participate in the upcoming exhibition, Mins Volume 4 on October 14 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The show will feature works from over 200 artists including Sibelley. VIP tickets are available via the link in @minspipeshow Instagram bio. General admission is free. Sibelley will demo at GAS Detroit in June and teach at the Corning Museum of Glass from July 9-16, 2023.

Born in Melbourne and based in Adelaide, Australia, artist Clare Belfrage has maintained a distinguished glassblowing practice for over 30 years. Detailed and complex glass drawings on blown glass forms reflect the high-level skill and mastery of the craft that makes her one of the country’s most renowned artists in this medium. Inspired by nature and its various rhythms and energies, Belfrage’s exquisite sculptural objects express her fine attention to detail and interest in the minutiae of the natural world.

Belfrage states: “As an artist, my point of view is often looking from close up. The big feeling that ‘small’ gives me is intimate and powerful. The industry in nature, its rhythm and energy, dramatic and delicate still holds my fascination as does the language and processes of glass.”

With a long involvement in education, Belfrage has lectured in the glass programs at the University of South Australia, Ohio State University and Curtin University, Western Australia. A founding member of blue pony studio in Adelaide, Belfrage played the pivotal role of Creative Director at Canberra Glassworks from 2009 to 2013. She is currently an Adjunct Professor at the University of South Australia and has taught numerous workshops throughout Australia, New Zealand, Japan and the United States.

Belfrage’s work is represented in major public collections including: most of the Australian State Gallery collections, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, Museum of Arts and Sciences, Sydney, National Art Glass Collection, Wagga Wagga, Corning Museum of Glass, Peabody Essex Museum, Tacoma Museum of Glass and Toledo Museum of Art, USA, Ebeltoft Glass Museum, Denmark, Ernsting Stifltung Glass Museum, Germany, Castello Sforzesco Museum, Italy, Museo do Vidro, Marinha Grande, Portugal and Niijima Glass Museum, Japan.

In addition to Australia, Belfrage exhibits regularly in North America, Europe, Hong Kong and New Zealand. Her work was recognized for its innovation and originality in 2005 and 2011 with the Tom Malone Glass Prize presented by the Art Gallery of Western Australia. In 2016, the artist was awarded the inaugural FUSE Glass Prize for Australian and New Zealand glass and in 2018 was selected as the South Australian Living Artist Festival feature artist, becoming the subject of the festival’s annual monograph, Rhythms of Necessity, written by Kay Lawrence and Sera Waters. She was also named JamFactory Icon of 2018, presenting a solo exhibition for a three-year national tour.

With rounded corners and soothing pastel hues, Belfrage’s uniquely shaped pieces stand out for their delicate patterns drifting over organic forms. Each of these ethereal designs is “drawn” with glass stringers. The sandblasted and pumiced surface creates a satin finish that really helps to draw the viewer into the layers of pattern, which is quite different from what a reflective surface does. Grids made of softly curving white lines, circular slices, and strips of different colors are just a few of the ways she covers her sculptures. The mesmerizing blueprints contrast the pure simplicity of the sculptural shape, which in turn creates visual depth. Although the artist plans carefully and there is a lot of preparation that goes into each piece, she works consciously with the fluid nature of the material and process so the pattern stretches, softens, and opens up – an important aspect of the final piece.

She told Modern Met: “When absorbed by the natural world, the enduring inspiration for my work, part of my experience of wonder is the contemplation of Time – the way Time is described, measured, and held. It can feel frozen or captured, it can feel sped up, dense with energy, it can feel fleeting, and it can feel endless. The rhythms within the natural world that I observe and work to bring into my making, mark out movement through Time, evidence of the life that is lived, expressing growth, aging, shedding, mapping and binding.”

Belfrage is currently completing a two-week residency at the Tweed Regional Gallery in Murwillumbah, NSW, Australia, which will result in a solo exhibition to take place in August 2023. She will be exhibiting with Adrian Sassoon Gallery at the art fair, PAD London Design + Art 2022, October 11 – 16 in Berkeley Square, London, and with Sandra Ainsley Gallery in Toronto from October 27 – 30, 2022. Belfrage will also participate in a three-week residency followed by a solo exhibition at Soneva Fushi Art Glass in the Maldives in December 2022.