David Graeber: Preserving Nature for Eternity in a Paperweight
Talking 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 4
Talking 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 Glass
Talking 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 Glass
Talking 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 Issues
Talking 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 Light
Talking 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 Simpson
Talking 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 Microcosmos
Talking 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 Sculpture
Talking 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_outline
Flameworking 2024: Perspectives
Talking Out Your Glass podcast
Talking Out Your Glass podcast kicks off 2024 with our first episode of Season 9! This fascinating panel discussion on flameworking features four of the technique’s most well-known artists: Paul Stankard, Carmen Lozar, Dan Coyle aka coylecondenser and Trina Weintraub. At different points in their careers, these four artists compare and contrast their journeys and experiences working glass behind the torch. Considered a living master in the art of the paperweight, Paul Stankard’s work is represented in more than 75 museums around the world. Over his 52-year...
info_outlineCrista Van Slyck-Matteson’s multi-media art speaks of her love for wild spaces and deep connection to the Pacific Northwest. An accomplished sculptor, she allows her finely-honed intuition to guide spontaneous sculpting of natural world observations. Matteson’s work also utilizes technical mold-making skills to create exact replicas of found botanical forms. She combines these skills to create magical-realist sculptures.
Matteson states: “My sculptures live in a magical, narrative space between memories and imagination. A space that gives equal importance to the real and the imagined stories of the natural world. My interactions with the wilderness are woven into my themes. By creating stylized glass trophies, I am attempting to both capture the magical essence of untamed creatures that share my environment and honor them. With every outdoor adventure, I bring new inspiration into my studio.”
She continues: “Forest Watcher Sees All is my latest series of kiln cast glass sculptures. These works spring from my observations and research into the connectedness of all living things. As a resident of one of the fastest growing cities in the nation, I see and feel the impact on our local ecosystem. I explore the idea of kinship to shed light on what this means for our collective future.”
After receiving a BFA in textiles from the California College of Art in San Francisco, Matteson began her varied art career in costume design. Since then, her pursuit of fine art education has been relentless. Having won several merit scholarships, the artist began to study glass and metal working at the Pratt Fine Art Center and figure sculpting in the Sculpture Atelier at Gage Academy, both in Seattle. In 2018 and 2019, she furthered her glass studies at Pilchuck Glass School in Stanwood, Washington.
Exhibited at fine art galleries, museums and public art installations across the US, Matteson’s work is represented by Bender Gallery, Asheville, North Carolina, the Museum of Glass, Washington State, and Habatat Gallery, Royal Oak, Michigan. Her work was recognized with a Collector’s Choice Award from Habatat Gallery’s International Glass Exhibit and Juror’s Choice Awards at Mesa Contemporary Art Museum, the Schack Art Center, and Pratt Fine Art Center’s annual auction. Matteson was selected to exhibit notable glass work at the 2019 Pilchuck annual auction and in 2021 to create a large mixed media public installation for Amazon Headquarters in Seattle. Her teaching experience includes work as an assistant instructor at The Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, New York, and Pratt Fine Art Center.
In recent months, Matteson has produced new sculpture for Bender Gallery and The Museum of Glass Store in Tacoma. New work was also created for Habatat Gallery’s 50th anniversary exhibition in Royal Oak, Michigan – Habatat’s Glass Art Fair – opening September 9, 2021.
On October 15, her studio will participate in the Glass Art Society’s Collectors Tour, held during this year’s Refract: Seattle Glass Experience. Tickets on sale through the Refract website (link below). On October 16, the artist will demonstrate and discuss her work during scheduled studio tours, also part of Refract.
She says: “I have explored many different mediums but didn’t fall in love with glass work until I realized it could be cast like bronze. Spontaneity of sculpting and carving wax feeds my intuitive, somewhat impulsive side. Making molds of natural objects, such as mushrooms, to be replicated in glass, feeds my need to catalogue the natural world around me. My hunger for a technical challenge is satisfied by the involved aspects of heating a solid glass into a liquid, and then forming, annealing, and cooling it. I enjoy engineering complex forms and pushing the limits of glass. Aesthetically, I feel the transparency of glass reflects the ethereal quality of our ecosystem and cautions the viewer to tread carefully.”