A Pursuit of Perfection: Jack Storms’ Cold-Fusion Glass Sculptures
Talking Out Your Glass podcast
Release Date: 11/10/2023
Talking Out Your Glass podcast
Austin Stern’s Little Monsters series is a body of work where cartoon-like creatures interact with physical manifestations of their own anxieties. These worries which assail the monsters, gleefully weighing down their minds and bodies, are simultaneously sinister and comical representations of our daily setbacks and stumbling blocks. By approaching this subject matter from a playful perspective, the viewer is invited to find the humor in the small battles we fight daily to find positivity, peace, and happiness. States Stern: “I am inspired by the bright and highly saturated...
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An abandoned, dilapidated swimming pool in the forest. A pile of trash smoldering in a secluded backyard. A dark and deserted highway flanked by an unexplained light. Michael Endo’s kiln formed glass is about the potential of empty spaces and how people inhabit the subliminal area between the civilized world and wilderness. It begs the question: Is our world real or manufactured? Says Endo: “Locked in a loop of familiarity and strangeness, my gestural paintings, drawings, glasswork and sculptures exist in a moment of tension. By depicting the boundary between a wild space and the...
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Ethan Stern’s work is rooted in traditional craftsmanship, contemporary design, and a deep connection to the natural environment. As a glass artist, he draws inspiration from historic craft traditions such as cut crystal and classical ceramic design, while reinterpreting these forms through a modern lens. His practice seeks to explore the interplay between utility, beauty, and narrative, bridging the realms of functional objects and sculptural expression. Stern states: “Central to my approach is the concept of light as a dynamic medium. Glass, with its inherent ability to refract, reflect,...
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Chaiah (pronounced ‘Kaya’) Sullivan has been impressing the glass world and Instagram followers with his beautiful and intricate cactus-inspired functional glass to the tune of a 94K following and growing. He came upon the cactus after a friend mistakenly referred to another plant pipe he had created as a cactus and decided to give making a realistic cactus pipe a try. “I never really expected to be the cactus guy,” Sullivan says. Growing up in Paonia, a small town on the Western Slope of Colorado, Sullivan first discovered flameworking in 2005 at age 14. Two years later, he started...
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At the Glass Art Society’s (GAS) 2025 conference, Trailblazing New Traditions, held in May in Arlington and Fort Worth, Texas, Zachary Layhew and Hoseok Youn presented a unique collaborative glassblowing demonstration where Youn’s Venetian fantasy vessels intersected with the baroque, cubist influences of Layhew’s practice. The artists shared their unique approaches to traditional techniques and designs, both makers transforming the context of tradition through the lens of their original personalities. The result was a figurative sculpture constructed from historical goblets and...
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Author and architectural glass artist Robert Sowers wrote that lead should be considered a design element and not just a matrix to hold stained glass. That idea spoke to Richard Prigg, who has developed a body of work that celebrates lead and solder as much as it does breathtakingly beautiful glass. Though historically stained glass windows conveyed the teachings of the church, Prigg’s work intentionally tells no stories, but rather impacts the viewer by combining more expressive lead work with various light-modulating elements of and beyond the window itself. States Prigg: “I have an...
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Jason Christian’s work pushes the boundaries of his craft, combining the delicate complexity of reticello with intricate detailing inspired by Fabergé eggs. Through series such as his Bumbershoots and Yo-Yos that reflect classic Venetian technique to more sculptural works including Dragons and Volpe, Christian’s art is deeply influenced by his family, personal experiences, and the nostalgia of growing up in the Pacific Northwest. A renowned glass artist based in the Seattle area, Christian was born in 1976 on Whidbey Island, Washington, to a metal...
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Beth Lipman is an American artist whose sculptural practice generates from the Still Life genre, symbolically representing the splendor and excess of the Anthropocene and the stratigraphic layer humanity will leave on earth. Assemblages of inanimate objects and domestic interiors, inspired by private spaces and public collections, propose portraits of individuals, institutions, and societies. Through works in glass, wood, metal, photography, and video, Lipman presents a meditation on our relationship to Deep Time, a monumental time scale based on geologic events that minimizes human...
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Using over 17,500 letters of handmade murrine tiles, Mathieu Grodet composed La Déclaration des Droits de l’Homme et du Citoyen, which translated means the Declaration of Human Rights, which was written in 1789. Recreated in mosaic style, dark red was used to represent blood, with the ivory-colored background symbolizing the ivory tower that freedom must be taken from. Intense attention to detail combined with a contemporary message defines Grodet’s multi-disciplinary works in glass. A French-born artist living and working in Canada, Grodet also creates thin and elegant...
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An American born artist dedicated to developing new techniques of glass working, Joshua Hershman combines optical physics with the fluidity of glass to make his contemporary sculpture. By harnessing light though hand-polished lenses, he employs unique methods of casting, coldworking, and photography in his boundary pushing work. Hershman states: “My work offers meditations on the complexities within the concept of photography and the repercussions of the camera’s impact on culture. The incredibly creative and destructive nature of photography is both inspiring and alarming to me. It...
info_outlineEach piece in Jack Storms’ newest line of sculptures begins with the artist’s unique and meticulously hand-crafted Infinity Core, boasting 30 times more intricacy and a mesmerizing sparkle that outshines anything you’ve seen before. Every facet reflects a world of colors, and each sculpture captures a symphony of light.
Growing up in New Hampshire as a talented athlete and motivated student, Storms didn’t discover his passion for art until his twenties, at the end of which he earned his BA in art with a focus on studio production from Plymouth State University. During his junior year, the young artist began apprenticing at the studio of coldworking artist Toland Sand, who was combining lead crystal and dichroic glass via a cold-glass process. Eventually Storms became a strong enough sculptor to branch out on his own and in 2004 opened StormWorks Studio.
Storms’ unique cold-glass process can take up to 10 weeks. He begins at the heart of the design by creating a core of lead crystal which is cut, polished and laminated creating reflective mirrors. When wrapped in optical glass, the refraction of light as it passes through the glass art creates rainbows of hypnotic color. The process requires repetitive cutting, grinding and polishing, and relies upon Fibonacci’s theory of natural mathematics found in nature.
States Storms: “Natural beauty is created, not manufactured. From the repetition of florets in a flower to the scales of a pineapple’s skin, Fibonacci numbers are found in the pattern of growth of every living thing in nature.”
Both challenged and inspired by the notion that his artistic goals were impossible, early on Storms invented a cold-working lathe uniquely suited to his process. His invention offered the artist the ability to turn glass and sculpt shapes with curves and details like one would produce from a wooden medium. Early memories of studying his father’s craftsmanship on a wood lathe provided him with the blueprint for his vision. Pioneering new trails in the world of fine art has always motivated Storms.
Seen by the world in multiple viral videos featuring his kaleidoscopic and prismatic cold-fusion glass sculptures, Storms’ pieces have also been featured in Marvel’s film, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 1, and the artist created a life-sized bat to commemorate Derek Jeter’s 3000th Hit. Storms’ laborious process of repetitive cutting, grinding and polishing requires intense passion and rigid self-discipline, resulting in his signature works of contemporary glass art.
Currently, Storms is developing new designs for wearable art. These wearable sculpture designs follow the same creative process and spirit as the artist’s larger, more dynamic sculptures. He says: “My design philosophy revolves around creating something that fosters a closer connection with people. I want people to have a personal item they can take with them and truly fall in love with. I believe the future holds great promise for wearable art, and I anticipate seeing its prevalence grow in the coming years.”
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