Talking Out Your Glass podcast
The inspiration for Jonathan Capp’s art comes from the experiences that shape his life. Whether hiking the Appalachian Trail, coaching Little League Baseball, becoming an archaeological illustrator halfway around the world, or competing on Blown Away, he channels those experiences into ideas and fully embraces life as a part of his art. Capps states: “I welcome new ideas and innovations in the studio, bringing fun, energy, and an inspiring enthusiasm into the hot shop.” Raised in Knoxville, TN, Capps spent much of his youth outdoors, camping, hiking, and playing baseball. After...
info_outline David Graeber: Preserving Nature for Eternity in a PaperweightTalking Out Your Glass podcast
Early in his career, Paul Stankard used to trade paperweights for gasoline and car servicing with John Graeber. In 1989, through his uncle John, David Graeber wound up casually visiting Stankard’s studio and weeks later was invited to come and work with him. Young Graeber started learning about glass in the deep end of the pool. Thirty-five years later, he continues to work with Stankard about a day a week. Having mastered numerous glassmaking techniques and having developed his own working style and visual aesthetic, in 2009 Graeber started his own art glass...
info_outline Morgan Peterson: Winner of Blown Away 4Talking Out Your Glass podcast
Said Blown Away Season 4 winner, Morgan Peterson, “I’m not just the creepy weirdo lurking in the background anymore. I’m right up front.” As champion of Netflix’s 2024 glassblowing competition series, the Seattle-based artist received a whopping cash prize of $100,000, a paid residency in Venice, Italy, with glass legend Adriano Berengo, and a residency at the world-renowned Corning Museum of Glass. Growing up in Boston, MA, Peterson’s watched horror films and Unsolved Mysteries with her Godmother, introducing her to the unnerving and creepy style so associated with her...
info_outline Clifford Rainey: A Life's Travelogue in Cast GlassTalking Out Your Glass podcast
Principally a sculptor who employs cast glass and drawing as primary methodologies, Clifford Rainey creates work that is interdisciplinary, incorporating a wide spectrum of materials and processes. A passionate traveler, his work is full of references to the things he has seen and experienced. Celtic mythologies, classical Greek architecture, the blue of the Turkish Aegean, globalization and the iconic American Coca-Cola bottle, the red of the African earth, and the human figure combine with cultural diversity to provide sculptural imagery charged with emotion. A British artist...
info_outline The State of Stained GlassTalking Out Your Glass podcast
Enjoy this stained glass panel discussion with top industry professionals and educators Judith Schaechter, Stephen Hartley, Megan McElfresh, and Amy Valuck. Topics addressed include: what is needed in stained glass education; how the massive number of Instagrammers making suncatchers and trinkets affect stained glass; how to promote stained glass in a gallery setting; and how to stay relevant as stained glass artists. The panelists: By single-handedly revolutionizing the craft of stained glass through her unique aesthetic and inventive approach to materials, Judith...
info_outline Kazuki Takizawa Uses Glass Art to Address Mental Health IssuesTalking Out Your Glass podcast
Kazuki Takizawa’s 2015 installation entitled Breaking the Silence represents the artist’s interpretation of a person’s breaking point and the juxtaposition of balancing inner struggles with oppressive external forces. The installation incorporated performance aspects and sound, where slanted vessels filled with water until submitting to the liquid’s weight, falling over onto a table. Takizawa’s work provided a new perspective for interacting with glass, going beyond form and technique to provoke a deeper level of engagement. Impressed by how humble and open Takizawa was...
info_outline Jessica Loughlin’s Kiln Formed Glass: An Homage to the Observation of LightTalking Out Your Glass podcast
Jessica Loughlin’s work is characterized by a strict reductive sensibility and restricted use of color. Fusing kiln formed sheets of opaque and translucent glass together in flat panels or in thin, geometric compositions and vessels, she alludes to shadow, reflection and refraction. Loughlin’s work is influenced by the flat landscapes and salt lakes of South Australia, and the recurring motif of the mirage appears in much of her work. Each piece makes its own poetic statement. “My work investigates space, seeing distance and understanding how wide-open spaces, particularly of the...
info_outline The Glass Galaxies of Josh SimpsonTalking Out Your Glass podcast
Apollo 8, which launched on December 21, 1968, was the first mission to take humans to the moon and back. While the crew did not land on the moon’s surface, the flight was an important prelude to a lunar landing, testing the flight trajectory and operations getting there and back. Capt. James A Lovell, Apollo 8 astronaut, shared his memories of that historic mission: “Then, looking up I saw it, the Earth, a blue and white ball, just above the lunar horizon, 240,000 miles away…I put my thumb up to the window and completely hid the Earth. Just think, over five billion people,...
info_outline Wesley Fleming: Flameworking the Realism of the MicrocosmosTalking Out Your Glass podcast
Wesley Fleming brings the fantastic realism of the microcosmos to life in glass. An ambassador for smaller denizens of the earth, his passion for nature sparks awe and curiosity in others. Growing up in the countryside, his favorite pastime was exploring beneath logs and rocks in the woods or reading science fiction and comic books. Hence the natural world and his own imagination became his muse. Says Fleming: “I hope to rekindle awe and curiosity for nature with my fantastic realism. I’ve focused more than two decades honing my flameworking skills and trying to capture the essence of...
info_outline Robin and Julia Rogers: A Collaboration Resulting in Provocative Glass SculptureTalking Out Your Glass podcast
Physically and metaphorically Robin and Julia Rogers put their minds, hearts and hands together to create sculptural works in glass – their chosen material because of its inherent qualities of luminosity, viscosity, and seductive flow. Their inspiration is drawn from the natural world, personal experience, family life, music, psychology, and science. Robin and Julia state: “Complex and mystifying, the human mind drives us, but the subtle inner workings remain, to certain extent, unknown. Delving into the psyche, our work explores the human mind to reveal a metaphorical interior of...
info_outlineSusan Taylor Glasgow: The Way Things Never Were
Susan Taylor Glasgow’s work embraces feminine ideals of sensuality in a seductive but unforgiving material, offering conflicting messages of comfort and expectation. Some of her sculpture pays tribute to the era of June Cleaver and Betty Crocker via images appropriated from the world of ‘50s and ‘60s television and advertising. The bustier forms of Chandelier Dresses and the sensuous detailed perfection of lingerie sets present fantasies, reminding us of the way things never were. Sewing, cooking and arranging glass, Glasgow attempts to reconcile the conflict over work and home, feminist ideals and the Madonna complex, duty and fulfillment.
She says: “In a way, my work is the result of homemaking skills gone awry. I have always embraced domesticity in spirit, but not in action. My life as an artist puts housekeeping last while instead I cook and sew glass. My internal domestic struggle has led me to examine the concept of domestic expectations and traditional roles of men and women. I am intrigued by 1950s imagery and the false perception of simpler times.”
Born in Superior, Wisconsin, Taylor Glasgow grew up just across the tip of Lake Superior, in Duluth, Minnesota. She attended the University of Iowa, graduating in 1983 with a BFA in Design. After working in graphic design for a short period, the artist returned to the sewing skills passed on to her by her mother, opening a wildly successful dressmaking shop, On Pins & Needles, which she owned and ran from 1984 to1997 in Iowa City, Iowa, and Columbia, Missouri. In 1997, the artist sold the dressmaking shop to pursue her interest in art, focusing on glass.
Utilizing her skills as a seamstress, Glasgow developed a unique approach to glass, stitching glass components together. Each sculpture starts out as a flat sheet of glass. To establish the three-dimensional shape and holes, sections of glass are kiln-fired several times. To create the imagery, text and figures are sandblasted into the glass and pigment is rubbed into the sandblasted area to create the black and gray photo. Then the glass is fired again to 1250 degrees to melt the pigment into the glass. Once cooled, the sections are coldworked, given a final sandblasting and then assembled. Redefining “woman’s work” in non-traditional mediums, the artist creates complex forms and imagery while exploring the dichotomy of women and societal expectations.
Glasgow received Pilchuck Glass School’s emerging artist grant in 2002, a WheatonArts fellowship in 2003, and was a resident artist at the Pittsburgh Glass Center in 2008. Her work can be found in the collections of the Arkansas Arts Center, Little Rock, AR; the Alexander Tutsek Foundation, Münich, Germany; the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburg, PA; the Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA; and the Museum of American Glass, Millville, NJ.
Glasgow says: “I think viewers respond to my work on many levels – first to its initial form and visual appeal, and there’s a secondary impact once the viewer gets a closer look. An example might be the corset series. The shape of the corset is appealing to both men and women for different reasons. Once the work is examined closer, a deeper understanding of the piece is revealed. Women respond to my work in the way the message is intended — exploring the dichotomy of women in the household and domestic expectations — while men respond to the work’s sensual qualities. I think for the most part it is because not much has changed for women in the household. Most women are the main caregivers and housekeepers, while still trying to uphold the expected requirement of being glamorous and sexy.”
Working from her new studio in Columbia, Missouri, Glasgow currently has work on view in a group show at Blue Rain Gallery, Santa Fe, and will participate in Habatat Galleries’ 50th Anniversary Exhibition, opening September 17, 2021, while working towards securing a solo museum show in the future.