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 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_outline Flameworking 2024: PerspectivesTalking 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_outline Indre Bileris: Mastering Design and Painting for Liturgical, Educational, and Residential Glass ProjectsTalking Out Your Glass podcast
Master Glass Painter at Judson Studios in Los Angeles, California, Indre Bileris earned a BFA in Illustration from Parsons School of Design and became involved in stained glass conservation during that same time at St. Ann and the Holy Trinity’s conservation program. Having been a conservator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Cloisters from 2007 to 2012, the artist arrived at the Judson Studios with an extensive body of design and painting work for liturgical, educational, and residential installations. Her hand can be seen in much of the painted work that comes out of the studio...
info_outline Deanna Clayton’s Figurative and Decorative Pate de Verre VesselsTalking Out Your Glass podcast
Following her father’s passing 10 years ago, Deanna Clayton’s artwork took an unexpected turn when she found herself modeling clay into a figurative vessel rather than a decorative one. The translation of the clay form into glass symbolized glass’ inherent life-affirming qualities. Soft, flowing edges at the bases of these sculptures add to the sense of impermanence; electroplated copper helps to ground the figures, enhancing their presence. Clayton states: “The inspiration for this new body of work is a true love of the life inherent in glass itself. To create a face in glass is a...
info_outline Daniel Clayman: Capturing Light in Cast Glass Sculpture and Large-Scale InstallationsTalking Out Your Glass podcast
Some might say that Daniel Clayman is more a sculptor using glass as his primary material than a glass artist. That is to say his sculptures would be successful from a formal point of view no matter what material they were created in. With one major exception: the play of light in Clayman’s glass art enhances the objects dramatically in comparison with how they might appear in a solid, non-translucent medium. Born in 1957 in Lynn, Massachusetts, Clayman planned a career as a theater lighting designer, studying in the theater and dance departments at Connecticut College, eventually dropping...
info_outlineInspired by Cycladic fertility icons, early Byzantine paintings, and folk art, Robin Grebe’s figures serve as a canvas or setting for her narratives. Through these elegant and often autobiographical cast glass busts, she explores the universal quest to understand the directions our lives. Imagery from the natural world represents peaceful beauty, but also speaks to uncharted territory and the unknown. Using birds and plants as metaphors for mythic flight, spirituality, the intangible, and nature’s uncontrollable forces, Grebe transforms her personal search into a shared exploration.
She says: “I have always worked figuratively; in some ways my sculptures are autobiographical. They help me process my thoughts, ideas and changes in life. The sculptures usually incorporate images from the natural world. These images serve as a metaphor to both our fragility as well as our resilience in our personal/emotional/spiritual world and in the larger world itself.”
Born in Newark, New Jersey, in 1957, Grebe earned her MFA in Ceramics/Glass from Tyler School of Art, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania and BFA in Ceramics from the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston, Massachusetts. She has taught glass and ceramics at the Massachusetts College of Art and Pilchuck Glass School, among others. Her exhibitions and collections include the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Hokkaido Museum of Modern Art in Japan, the Morris Museum in Morristown, New Jersey, the Taft Museum in Cincinnati, Ohio, the Lowe Museum, Miami, Florida, and the Tucson Museum of Art in Tucson, Arizona, to name a few.
One of the things Grebe loves most about making her sculptures is working wet clay to make her sculptural form. She builds a plaster mold around that clay form, and once it has hardened, peels the clay out of the mold and fills the cavity with chunks of colored glass. It then gets fired in a kiln to melt the glass into the cavity. Once cooled the mold is chipped off the glass sculpture. The glass is then ground, sanded and polished into its final form.
Using cast glass, ceramic glazes, and transparent enamels, Grebe creates her monolithic and allegorical human forms, which seem simultaneously fragile and strong. To her, they illustrate the paradoxes of human life. Recent exhibitions of this work include a 2019 solo show at Habatat Gallery, West Palm Beach, Florida, and the group show, In Her Voice: Influential Women in Glass, held at the Sandwich Art Museum, Sandwich, Massachusetts, in 2021.