Deanna Clayton’s Figurative and Decorative Pate de Verre Vessels
Talking Out Your Glass podcast
Release Date: 12/01/2023
Henry Halem: Inspiring and Educating a Generation of Glass Artists
Talking Out Your Glass podcast
More than 50 years after Henry Halem designed a series of cast glass sculptures inspired by the Kent State shootings, he decided to bring the imagery back to life. At a time when the Vietnam War empowered social activism and fueled political debates, the May 4, 1970, Kent State shootings seemed to take center stage, influencing several genres of music and art. Among these works was Halem’s glass sculptures. “The imagery was based on the shootings at Kent State and the blindness that the political system had in relationship to what young people were about in protesting the war....
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Pinkie Maclure: Telling Stories of Our Time Through Traditional Stained Glass
Talking Out Your Glass podcast
An artist using the allegorical power of medieval stained glass as a vehicle for contemporary expression, Pinkie Maclure marries traditional craft techniques with a radically different aesthetic. Stained glass was invented in the 12th century to communicate to a largely illiterate population, its vivid colors having a seductive quality that’s hard to resist. However, its narrative role has been largely abandoned in recent years, which is something Maclure hopes to change through her architectural installations and highly-detailed stained glass light...
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Rocko Belloso: Creating Narratives in Boro
Talking Out Your Glass podcast
An American glass artist best known for his modern approach to centuries-old techniques, Rocko Belloso specializes in murrine, cut and flip, stringer drawing, and sculpture. He is an innovator in his combination of these elements as well as his custom color mixing methods. His work presents an updated aesthetic with influences from comic books, cult movies, metal music, and lowbrow art, ranging from stylized depictions to hyper-realistic portraits. As a young teen, Belloso anticipated attending art school to become a cartoonist, but his plans changed in 2003 when he saw the two-dimensional...
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Audrey Handler: A Conversation with “The First Lady” of Glass
Talking Out Your Glass podcast
Housed in a 19th-century cheese factory, Audrey Handler’s studio was founded in 1970 and is one of the oldest continually operating glassblowing facilities in the country. Through demonstrations she gave there and workshops she taught on the road at places such as Penland School of Craft and Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, she helped spread the idea that glass could be used as a medium for personal artistic expression. A pioneer of the Studio Glass Movement, Handler started working in glass in 1965 as one of Harvey Littleton’s first female glass students. He and his students...
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Jonathan Capps’ Global Practice of Interdisciplinary Collaboration, Social Engagement, and Cultural Exchange
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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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_outlineFollowing 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 self-evident evocation of the material’s life quality. Creating abstracted forms in glass that become believable as life is what is truly inspiring. This is what continues my quest to experiment and explore glass and its capabilities as an art form.”
Clayton started working with glass 35 years ago as a student in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. She began as most glass artists do, by being introduced to a blow pipe and a furnace of molten glass. Her work prior to finding glass was primarily drawing and printmaking, with an emphasis on representing the human form. She earned her associates in fine arts degree at Bucks County Community College.
Wanting to continue her education in glass, Clayton chose Kent State University in Kent, Ohio, where the program taught by Henry Halem had produced some of the most successful glass artists working at the time. After two years, she moved to Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, where she graduated from the University of Illinois with a bachelor of fine arts degree in art history in 2002.
While attending the University of Illinois, Clayton started her own glass studio with her husband, Keith Clayton. After 10 years in Illinois, in 1995 the couple discovered beautiful Door County, Wisconsin, where they moved with their three children. The studio was known for its pate de verre technique and electroplated copper vessels – a successful source of inspiration to her for over 20 years.
Today, D.C. Studios LLC is designed to educate others in the ancient and rewarding process of pate de verre. Clayton has taught classes at the Corning Museum of Glass, New York; The Cleveland Institute of Art; and Duncan McClellan Glass Project, St. Petersburg, Florida. Her work can be seen in public and private collections around the world. This year’s exhibitions included a solo exhibition, Surging Forward, at Duncan McClellan Gallery, St. Petersburg, Florida; Glass Coast Weekend, Habatat Fine Art, Sarasota, Florida; and Art Palm Beach, Mattsen Fine Art, Palm Beach, Florida. Artist awards include the 2019 Collectors Choice, 47th Annual International Glass Invitational, Habatat Galleries, Royal Oak, Michigan; SAC Award, Professional Dimensions Group, Milwaukee, Wisconsin; and Most Unique Interpretation of a Vessel, Habatat Galleries, Boca Raton, Florida.
Says Clayton: “I love the versatility and freshness of glass as an artistic medium. The potential for expression in contemporary glass is limitless.”