Talking Out Your Glass Podcast

Michael Dupille: Creating an Art Form An early pioneer of the fusing movement in the Northwest, Michael Dupille is accustomed to developing the processes and products necessary to achieve his aesthetic goals in glass. As the creator and early master of Fritography, the artist’s work can be found in numerous public and private collections including those of the Washington and Oregon State Arts Commissions, The Everett Cultural Commission, The Seattle Times, The Pierce County Arts Commission, Amazon.com, and the Seattle Mariners.  He says: “At first, I was the only person doing frit work. Now there are many people teaching the techniques. Working with frit and fusing in general gives you freedom of expression. Learning how the colors work, how they fire, and what you can do with the different sizes of frit provides a conduit for your imagination.” Some of the most unique developments in Dupille’s work have been the result of experimentation or aesthetic accident. He has the mindset of a perpetual student, alway

The Corning Museum of Glass Acquires its First Glass Cannabis Pipe, Created by David Colton   The Corning Museum of Glass named David Colton as the recipient of its prestigious 2019 Rakow Commission, awarded annually to emerging and established artists whose work is not yet represented in the Museum’s collection. Colton’s sculpture represents the first-ever glass cannabis pipe to be added to the permanent collection of any major art museum. With its bright pink, red, and purple calligraphic forms, this expressive, graffiti-inspired sculptural object demonstrates the contribution of pipemakers to colored borosilicate glass, the palette of which has expanded greatly since the beginning of the glass pipe movement in the late 20th century. Heavily influenced by the rise of graffiti in America in the 1980s and ’90s, Colton creates his own take on the graphic art form in sculpture, using glass as his chosen medium. Recognized by his peers for the distinct organic style he has developed, Colton’s practice encompasse

On November 12, 2019, Venice and Murano, Italy, were devastated by “acqua alta,” record high water from tidal floods, which caused severe damage throughout the laguna and islands. Master glassblower Davide Fuin has established a GoFundMe campaign to help glass artists who need outside funding to make repairs and get shops, furnaces and studios back in working order.    Born in 1962 on Murano, Fuin still lives and works on the island. Considered one of the most skilled glassblowers of the last 30 years, he has collaborated with Italy’s famous glass houses including Venini, Toso, Pauly, Salviati, Elite, and De Majo, as well as with many international artists and designers. His work can be found in major galleries as well as private and museum collections in Europe, the United States, Japan, Korea, Saudi Arabia, EAU, and Australia.   On September 15, 2015, at Palazzo Franchetti on Venice’s Grand Canal, the Istituto Veneto di Scienze Lettere ed Arti honored glass master Fuin for excelling in his ability to make b

Glass Vegas 2020: Come Experience the Love   Well-known and respected as an organized, professionally run trade show, Glass Vegas promotes functional glass artists and brings together buyers and sellers of everything from simple dry pipes to rigs and bubblers to headies created by the nation’s finest artists. The success of Glass Vegas can be attributed to a lot of hard work by the Glass Vegas trade show team, including mother-daughter duo LeeAnne and Amy Short, who made the love and bonds formed in this community an important part of doing business.     The 2020 Glass Vegas Expo will be held January 28 through 30 at Bally’s Hotel and Casino, in Las Vegas, with over 300 vendor booths representing between 500 to 600 independent glass artists as well as leading wholesale vendors. The show provides attending retailers with the opportunity to buy quality glass and also to experience live music and painting, live flameworking demos by an all-star roster, the Millie Meet Up, the Boro Derby, and the World Series of

David Patchen: Satisfying the Artist and Craftsman Within Like a beautiful sea creature, David Patchen’s sculpture makes one marvel at how such detail, color, and complexity could be possible within its graceful form. Influenced by textiles, ethnically distinct colors and shapes, and the marine environment, the artist creates multi-layered cane and murrine, then contrasts complimentary tertiary tones in complex woven patterns. The resulting work reflects the artist’s desire to explore a variety of ideas simultaneously and challenges the role of glass in the art world at large. Patchen says: “I find glass as seductive as it is challenging. As a particularly unforgiving medium, an artist has endless creative opportunities to design for its unique properties — the only limitations are their imagination and skill in working with the material. I’ve always been captivated by how one can use this enigmatic material to achieve virtually any form, hold elements in suspension, and achieve great detail or soft abstracti

10 Moments … And Other Sculptural Works by Andrew Certo   On September 23, 2019, Andrew Certo won the Bern Gallery’s prestigious Pipe Classic. Twelve artists worked for 12 hours, and Certo emerged victorious with his representation of a marble falling into water represented 10 times chronologically. Visually striking, his piece titled 10 Moments includes a sherlock, rig, spoon, and chillum on a sheet glass base.   Certo says: “For me this piece is about a small event creating something big and how quickly things escalate. Thanks to Pipe Classic for putting together a killer event, to GTT for their generosity, and to all of the other competitors for pushing me to work my ass off to try to bring this idea to life. I’m excited to share this sculpture-rich work and the next ideas.”   A thriving pipe maker based out of Denver, Colorado, Certo’s interest in using glass as a medium began in 2007 at the Pittsburgh Glass Center and continued at Tyler School of Art, where he earned his BFA. The artist credits art schoo

Amber Cowan’s Horror Vacui    In Amber Cowan’s cornucopia of magical flameworked objects, each individual ornament in concert with its neighbor creates a sculpture so lavish, so elaborate, it exudes the air of a precious Victorian relic. Her visual feast speaks its truth through an abundance of decoration. The fact that the work is made from repurposed glass is only considered after the viewer recovers from the enchantment of excess.   On November 13, 2014, The Corning Museum of Glass (CMOG) awarded Cowan its 29th Rakow Commission, a program that provides $25,000 to encourage glass artists to explore new work without concern for financial limits. The award is presented to an artist not yet represented in the museum’s collection and selected by the curator of modern glass, at that time Tina Oldknow. Cowan’s Garden of the Forgotten and Extinct is now part of CMOG’s permanent collection.   Said Oldknow: “Amber takes this ubiquitous commercial glass and gives it a new, cool life, transforming it by destroying it

Jeffrey Stenbom: Coping with PTSD, Connecting with Other Veterans through Kilnformed Glass   In the aftermath of 9/11, Jeffrey Stenbom felt compelled to act and joined the U.S. Army. Stationed in Germany, he was deployed to Kosovo and sent to Iraq for the second year of the war. As a cavalry scout, forward reconnaissance or “finding the bad guys” became his daily routine for the next three and a half years during the height of the conflict. There were crises on the home front as well. While serving in Iraq, Stenbom missed both the birth of his first son and the death of his sister and only sibling. A combination of deployment and emotional upheaval triggered post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and Stenbom was discharged from the Army and returned stateside in January 2004. Back home, Stenbom tried to make a new life for himself as he struggled with anger issues caused by his PTSD. By chance, he discovered kilnforming glass in a class offered at Normandale Community College in Bloomington, Minnesota, where

Carmen Lozar: The Art of the Story   Spilling out from their bottles, bowls, cartons and cans, Carmen Lozar’s flameworked characters tell a story about how messy life can be. These small narratives accentuate the movement and flow of glass but also speak volumes about our relationship to the world.    “I have found myself drawn to glass for the innate sense of motion it can bring to a work of art. While the intrinsic motion of most materials becomes paralyzed at the touch of the human hand, glass, as an amorphous solid, never relinquishes its visual motility. I have chosen to pursue a career in glass sculpture not only for my love of the material, but also because there is so much left to be explored within the field of flameworking and the medium itself.”   Art has always played an essential role in Lozar’s life, growing up with a mother who performed puppet shows and a father who created scale ship models and watercolor renditions of the ramshackle barns on the outskirts of town. During undergraduate studie

Alex Bernstein: Time, Creation and Transformation   If we were to examine a cross-section of an ancient iceberg, no doubt the layers and various densities and opacities of color would be beautiful, but they would also signify something greater than ourselves. Such is the case with Alex Gabriel Bernstein’s sculpture. The forms and the techniques he uses to create them, mirror processes in nature such as oxidation, erosion, growth and decay, inspiring in the viewer a profound contemplation of time, creation and transformation.   In his hometown of Asheville, North Carolina, Bernstein purchased what was a dark and dingy pool hall called Sharkey’s and worked with a local architect to design a bright and open space for creativity. As the French Broad River flows by, the artist casts glass in layers of transparent color which intermingle with ambient light to evoke images of flowing water, ice crystals, mountain peaks and jagged canyons – all structures that seem solid and unyielding, but are actually in constant f

Receive This Glass                                                                                   "Receive this glass                                                                                    it holds my memories                                                                                    crafted blossoms                                                                                    suspended                                                                                    in stillness                                                                                    to be pollinated                                                                                    by your sight                                                                                    anticipating                                                                                    your touch through time."                                                                                                            

Mutant: Narcissus Quagliata’s New Book of Poetry and Sketches   “Divested of the illusion that art matters, divested of the illusion that it is meaningful and worthwhile to have a successful life as an artist, the irrational love for the creative process itself is all that I have left. It all boils down to my addiction to entering over and over in the magical moment and mysterious space when an idea forms inside of you and becomes itself by traveling from the dark cave of my soul to the outside reality, be it a huge glass dome or a small watercolor.” Narcissus Quagliata,     October 2019 marks the release of Narcissus Quagliata’s fourth book, Mutant, a collection of poetry and sketches created from 1968 to 2018 and inspired by the life and times of this internationally acclaimed artist. The book intimately explores the relationship between dreams, words and images on 216 pages with 13 full-color photographs of Quagliata's glass and watercolor work.   Born and raised in Rome, Quagliata later lived in San Franc

“An authentic art survives stylistic evolutions over time to become a benchmark of art history. In this regard, I believe historians will judge Scott Parsons’ work as being authentic, original, and (most importantly) a contribution to the historical trajectory of stained glass in architecture.” Kenneth von Roenn  Scott Parsons: Sacramental Imagination Applying his graphic arts talent to the world of stained glass, Scott Parsons designed 26 stained glass windows created in three series for Our Lady of Loreto Parish in Foxfield, Colorado. Fabricated by Derix Glasstudio, Taunusstein, Gemany, these windows redefined the roles of both the artisans making the work as well as the new technologies and materials used in their creation. Through imagery not from stained glass tradition but rather a contemporary sensitivity and visual language common to our time, Parsons expresses what he calls sacramental imagination - a dimension beyond our perceived reality.  “I am inspired by the idea of place, of defining a space w

At first glance, the work of Evelyn Gottschall Baker could have been unearthed in an archeological dig outside of Buena Vista, Colorado, where the artist lives and works from her studio, Glass Fractions. But a closer look will reveal these perfectly colored and shaped skeletal remains are actually pâte de verreglass castings. Using her unique mold-free process, Gottschall Baker is putting her work on the map at events such as Bullseye Glass Co.’s 2018 Emerge/Evolve competition and exhibition.   On view now at the Belleview Art Museum, Belleview, Washington, Gottschall Baker’s series of animal bone replicas garnered her an Honorable Mention in Emerge/ Evolve 2018. The artist spent over a year developing her own technique for sculpting glass paste into forms that can be fired without a mold. Her experience and discipline as a test engineer proved invaluable in the methodical, detailed testing required to create the complex firing schedules for this kilnworking method, which must account for shrinkage, varying t

Eusheen Goines: The Fillacello King   Born in a small village known as Takima, Oregon, Eusheen Goines comes from a family of artists and musicians. At a young age, he learned to live off of creating art and travelling like a nomad. By the age of 18, this lifestyle took the artist on solo journey working for Renaissance Fairs throughout the country.   In 2000 Goines discovered flameworking glass while working at a smoke shop and began spending the majority of his free time behind the torch. For years, he worked with the some of the best artists in functional glass including Mike Luna and Darby Holm. Now residing in Evergreen, Colorado, Goines is a part of the Everdream Studio.   With a free-flowing style Goines creates functional art pieces that can be instantly recognized as his by their intricate, controlled detail and color. His aesthetic signature, the fillacello, is created much the same as reticello but is painstakingly laid out on tubing then filled with color before it is condensed. One would be hard p

Geometry and the projection of light have always been key components of Debora Coombs’ artwork. In 2013 she began exploring mathematical projections as a way to understand shifts between dimensions of space. Working from Penrose tiling (a two-dimensional shadowof a five-dimensional lattice), 3D sculptures in glass and paper were built using her classic design skills to explore various aspects of mathematics. A number of high-profile residencies have allowed Coombs to explore these new concepts. In the spring of 2016, she did a month-long collaborative residency with computer scientist Duane Bailey, and in October, a 2-week residency at Assets for Artists: The Studiosat MASS MoCAat the Massachusetts Museum for Contemporary Art, North Adams, Massachusetts. In 2017, a 3-week residency at Carroll College, Helena, Montana, allowed the artist to focus on the theological symbolism of geometry, which resulted in a commission for 85 square feet of hand painted geometric stained glass windows for All Saints, the new ch

  Jane Bruce is an independent artist and educator based in New York City. She teaches and exhibits internationally and her dual careers of artist and maker have taken her around the world, from Europe to the USA, to Australia and back again. Bruce works in a range of techniques to create objects and mini installations, primarily through the processes of kiln forming, blowing and coldworking glass.   Born in England, Bruce received a Master of Arts from the Royal College of Art, London, and undertook further postgraduate study at the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred. She has been the recipient of a range of fellowships, visiting artist awards and grants, including fellowships from the Creative Glass Center of America and the New York Foundation for the Arts; artist-in-residence at The Studio of The Corning Museum of Glass, visiting artist at Museum of Glass, Tacoma, and a New Work Grant from the Australia Council. Exhibiting internationally, her work can be found in many major museum collections w

Whether a chameleon, a crested kingfisher or a Cristo Rhinoceros hornbill, Devin Somerville’s high-end art pipes begin with custom millies that are stacked and assembled into mind-blowing and unforgettable creatures. Also known as Crunklestein, the artist’s take on the ancient Italian technique of millefiore has become his aesthetic signature. Once a process amongst many used by Crunklestein, when friends, fans, and fellow artists came face to face with his colorful, ornate millie pipes, the artist was encouraged to make all of his work using the chip stack technique he developed.   Somerville,aka Cap’n Crunk Glass, resides in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and produces a variety of dab rig styles, specializing in the mini or tiny tube design. His small dab rigs usually include mini encased millies throughout the neck and body of the piece, while his full sized incredibly detailed and realistic sculpted oil rigs showcase his unlimited range of talent and creativity.  Blowing glass since before the year 2000, Crunklest

The Permission of the Mind Howard Ben Tré Using methods learned in his metal-foundry class at Brooklyn Technical High School, Howard Ben Tré pioneered the art of casting molten glass long before YouTube tutorials and Facebook casting groups existed. His hands-on technical innovations changed what was possible in cast glass and allowed Ben Tré to create career defining monumental sculptures that could survive the rigors of outdoor installation. Among Ben Tré’s public commissions are the award-winning installation of fountains and seating created for Post Office Square Park in Boston; the plaza and sculpture for BankBoston’s headquarters in downtown Providence; an interactive fountain for the hall of the renovated Mary Baker Eddy Library in Boston; the pedestrianization and street scheme redesign of Warrington Town Center in England; and plazas with sculpture/fountains and landscaping for Target Corporation Headquarters in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Whether casting glass for public spaces or personal series, Ben T

Viewing the hot sculpted work of Prague’s Martin Janecký inspires a sensation akin to gazing upon precious and antique art treasures from around the globe. His glass busts in white or black glass remind us that the human form speaks volumes about beauty, history, hope and art in a way that no other object could. Born in the Czech Republic in 1980, Janecký began working with glass at the age of 13 at his father’s factory. His secondary school training at Novy Bor concentrated on the creation of glass art and introduced him to artists and designers from around the world that hired him to execute their ideas. In 2003, the young artist made his first trip to the United States where he studied at the Pilchuck Glass School under Richard Royal and William Morris. Among Janecký’s most recognized strengths was his mastering of blowing and sculpting “inside the bubble,” the technique used in the creation of his startling original works. Before long, Janecký became a highly sought teacher in his field. He has taught, de