Artist Statement
To me, blowing glass is about intention, spontaneity, collaboration and conclusion, and challenges my knowledge of nature, engineering, physics, chemistry, color and form with each piece I create.
A third generation artist, I have been encouraged to express my creativity throughout my life. While attending the University of Wisconsin-Madison to pursue a Mechanical Engineering degree, I exercised the other side of my brain with courses in painting, life drawing and anatomy, neon sculpture, and glass. Summers in Door County, Wisconsin at the Edgewood Orchard Gallery is where Anne and Minnow Emerson inspired me with their creative genius and passion for glass. After college, I continued to paint, but it took many years before I could revisit the art form that stirred my soul. Today, I continue to explore this passion and attempt to claim a place among the emerging glass artists of today.
Influenced by the beauty of nature and landscapes, I blend color and form, allowing the chemical and physical reactions occurring from temperature and motion to complete the piece. With an Italian technique of incalmo, which joins two or more bubbles of glass together, I try to capture the relationship of sky and land. Using molds and glass powder, I translate natural phenomena to glass. I also use reduction techniques, which gives pieces a metallic-like finish with iridescent highlights. The character of these reduced pieces changes dramatically when influenced by light.
Over the last 20 years, I have studied and collaborated with some of the best glass artists and instructors: Jeremy Popelka & Stephanie Trenchard, Sturgeon Bay; Amanda Cosgrove Paffrath and Liz Gabriel, Racine; Nicholas Bowers, Milwaukee, and Steven Feren, Madison.
Education
- B.S., Mechanical Engineering, 1989, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Minor-Fine Arts
Collections
- O'Neil, Cannon, Hollman & DeJong, S.C., Milwaukee, WI
Shows & Galleries
- Woodwalk Gallery, Egg Harbor, WI
- CR Davidson Art, Milwaukee, WI
- Alumni Art Exhibit, Wayland Academy, Beaver Dam, WI
- Works, Milwaukee, WI
- Thanksgiving of the Arts, Milwaukee, WI
- Fieldstone Gallery, Jacksonport, WI
- Invitational Neon & Light Exhibition, University of Wisconsin-Madison