Kari Russell-Pool: Flameworking Glass Heirlooms
Talking Out Your Glass podcast
Primarily a flameworker, Kari Russell-Pool approaches her work in a painterly fashion. She is interested in the transformation of an object into an heirloom. Made from hand-pulled glass rods, her Safety Mom Series, for example, was inspired by post-September 11 ideas of keeping a family safe. That series, in incongruously cheerful colors, is dominated by images of guns and keys, and the delicate glasswork is patterned to look like traditional needlework, which kept women’s hands busy in the 18th and 19th centuries. For her Trophy Series, Russell-Pool flameworked a strikingly delicate and...
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Dylan Martinez: Glass Sculpture Confronting the Limits of Perception
Talking Out Your Glass podcast
At the heart of Dylan Martinez’s work lies the striking H2O/SiO2 series, inspired by the artistic tradition of Trompe L’œil—the technique that deceives the eye into perceiving three-dimensional objects on a flat surface. Each sculpture is meticulously hot-sculpted and hand-molded by Martinez, capturing the fluid movement of rising bubbles and the delicate form of what appears, at first glance, to be bags of water. These pieces transcend objecthood; they are immersive experiences that invite stillness, inspection, and recalibration of the senses. Martinez reflects, “Our vision has the...
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Melissa Janda: Sharing Willet Studios’ Gems at AGG Conference
Talking Out Your Glass podcast
As lead painter and art department manager for Willet Studios in Winona, Minnesota, Melissa Janda will speak about Willet’s large-scale projects at the upcoming American Glass Guild Conference, being held in Mesa, Arizona, from May 22 – 24, 2025. With 30 years of experience in the field of stained glass, Janda is adept at all aspects of stained glass production, specializing in glass painting, design and restoration work. From St. Agnes Catholic Church in Key Biscayne, Florida, to St. Jane de Chantal Catholic Church, Bethesda, Maryland, the results are stunning and speak...
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Meggy Wilm: Artist and Owner of Colorado Glass Works, D&L Art Glass Supply
Talking Out Your Glass podcast
One of the most followed stained glass artists on social media, Meggy Wilm of Colorado Glass Works, Boulder, Colorado, shares her creations with nearly 275K (and growing) followers on Instagram – attracting a new audience of young enthusiasts to the medieval craft. Wilm and her husband Dustin Mayfield also recently purchased Boulder-based D&L Art Glass Supply from Leslie Silverman, who dedicated 50 years to the company she founded. Experienced entrepreneurs, Wilm and Mayfield have a deep appreciation for the art glass industry and a forward-thinking vision for...
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Murano’s Ferro Brothers: Carved in Glass
Talking Out Your Glass podcast
Working with abrasive spinning wheels, the Ferro brothers cold work glass vessels in brilliant colors. Their dramatic cuts are sometimes five layers deep, and they cradle each piece for hours, days, and often weeks, painstakingly grinding away to reveal what lies underneath. There is always the danger that the piece will shatter, so it is a painstaking process. The finished vessel is a passionate work of art in vibrant translucent colors and energetic textures. Pietro and Riccardo Ferro were born in 1975 and 1980, respectively. Under the guidance of their father, cold-working Maestro Paolo...
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Stephanie Trenchard: Casting Womens’ Narratives in Glass
Talking Out Your Glass podcast
Stephanie Trenchard’s multi-disciplinary creative process includes painting and poetry along with cast glass. With a focus on biographical stories of how women artists have navigated careers and partnerships, motherhood and making a living while still focusing on their creative practice, the work also discusses the price the art has to pay in this grand juggling act. The artist prioritizes the actual experience of the work, making and seeing it, over the classification of genre or ownership of an idea. Says Trenchard: “I create my own visual vocabulary in storytelling. Using...
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Joyce J. Scott: Repositioning Craft as a Forceful Stage for Social Commentary and Activism
Talking Out Your Glass podcast
For more than three decades, trailblazing artist and activist Joyce J. Scott has elevated the creative potential of beadwork as a relevant contemporary art form. Scott uses off-loom, hand-threaded glass beads to create striking figurative sculptures, wall hangings, and jewelry informed by her African American ancestry, the craft traditions of her family (including her mother, renowned quilter Elizabeth T. Scott), and traditional Native American techniques, such as the peyote stitch. Each object that Scott creates is a unique, vibrant, and challenging work of art developed with imagination,...
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Studio Glass Pioneer Joel Philip Myers
Talking Out Your Glass podcast
self-described loner, Joel Philip Myers developed his skills in relative isolation from the Studio Glass movement. With works inspired by a vast array of topics ranging from his deep love of the Danish countryside to Dr. Zharkov, the artist avoided elaborate sculpture in favor of substantial vessels that are simple yet powerful. States Myers: “In 1964, on the occasion of an exhibition titled Designed for Production: The Craftsman’s Approach, I wrote in an essay in Craft Horizons magazine: ‘My approach to glass, as it is to clay, is to allow the material an...
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Jen Blazina: Casting Lost Memories and Forgotten Voices in Glass
Talking Out Your Glass podcast
Perceiving her role as a record keeper, artist Jen Blazina captures the essence of lost memories and forgotten voices. Through her work, she holds onto fragments of personal history, transforming common objects into poignant relics of the past. Her visual narratives express universal concepts of memory, inviting audiences to connect with the stories she preserves. Blazina states: “Memory is embodied in everything around us: in our culture, beliefs, objects, and ourselves. Discarded objects and those passed down to me become personal keepsakes and icons of the past, rather than...
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A Confluence of Passion: Martin Gerdin’s Glass Gamefish
Talking Out Your Glass podcast
Nothing short of inspirational, Martin Gerdin’s journey through crafting wild fish in hot glass is inextricably tangled with his evolution to mental health and sobriety. Beginning during the pandemic, the artist has hand-blown dozens of meticulously detailed trout, salmon, redfish, and other revered gamefish from his glassblowing studio, Gerdin Glass in Crawford, Colorado. The dangers, volatility, and physical labor of blowing glass are symbolic of the challenges he faced and conquered on his pathway to sober living. For some, fly fishing is a pastime, something fun to pursue...
info_outlineEnjoy 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 Schaechter championed her medium into the world of fine art. The content of her work – some of which gives voice to those who experience pain, grief, despair, and hopelessness – resonates with viewers, leaving a profound and lasting impression.
Schaechter has lived and worked in Philadelphia since graduating in 1983 with a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design Glass Program. She has exhibited her glass art widely, including in New York, Los Angeles and Philadelphia, The Hague and Vaxjo, Sweden. She is the recipient of many grants, including the Guggenheim Fellowship, two National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships in Crafts, The Louis Comfort Tiffany Award, The Joan Mitchell Award, two Pennsylvania Council on the Arts awards, The Pew Fellowship in the Arts and a Leeway Foundation grant. Her work is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum in New York, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Hermitage in Russia, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Corning Museum of Glass, The Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution and numerous other public and private collections. Schaechter’s work was included in the 2002 Whitney Biennial, a collateral exhibition of the Venice Biennale in 2012, and she is a 2008 USA Artists Rockefeller Fellow. In 2013 the artist was inducted to the American Craft Council College of Fellows. The Glass Art Society presented Schaechter with a Lifetime Achievement award in 2023, and this year she will receive the Smithsonian Visionary Award.
Schaechter has taught workshops at numerous venues, including the Pilchuck Glass School in Seattle, the Penland School of Crafts, Toyama Institute of Glass (Toyama, Japan), Australia National University in Canberra, Australia. She has taught courses at Rhode Island School of Design, the Pennsylvania Academy, and the New York Academy of Art. She is ranked as an Adjunct Professor at The University of the Arts and Tyler School of Art Glass Program, both in Philly .
Born in Philadelphia, Stephen Hartley began his craft career working on a variety of historic buildings and monuments throughout the region. In 1999, he moved to South Carolina to attend Coastal Carolina University, where he earned his undergraduate degree in History. He then relocated to Savannah, Georgia, and continued to work in the traditional crafts and conservation fields while attending graduate school. After completing his MFA in Historic Preservation at the Savannah College of Art and Design, Hartley was employed as an instructor at various colleges within the Savannah area. He earned his PhD from the University of York in 2018 where his dissertation thesis studied the historical and modern frameworks of trades training in the US and the UK.
Hartley eventually returned to the Philadelphia area and accepted the position of Head of Building Arts at Bryn Athyn College, where he formulated the first Bachelor’s of Fine Arts (BFA) in traditional building within the United States. Hartley, currently an associate professor in Notre Dame’s School of Architecture, wants his students to have a deeper appreciation for the work craftspeople do to fulfill an architect’s vision—by learning the vocabulary of the trades, understanding their history, and, when possible, trying out the tools.
Executive Director of the Stained Glass Association of America (SGAA), Megan McElfresh has dedicated her professional life to community service and the art and science of stained glass. With a background in fine arts and operations management, she joined the Association as a professional member in 2015 and became the Executive Director in the fall of 2017. Growing up in small stained glass studios, McElfresh continued to build on her technical skills in the medium by seeking mentorship opportunities throughout college. Some of the highlights of her glass studies were traveling to Pilchuck Glass School and time spent at the nationally recognized kiln forming resource center, Vitrum Studio.
Prior to working with the SGAA, McElfresh worked in a variety of roles from operations management at a life sciences firm in Washington, D.C. to IT and web support for small non-profit art organizations. In 2011, McElfresh moved from Northern Virginia to Buffalo, New York, and founded her studio, McElf GlassWorks. With a passion for her professional career as well as her new community, she never turned down an opportunity to collaborate with neighborhood teens and local programs to provide enthusiastic and creative educational enrichment. In her personal work, McElfresh uses her artwork in the advocacy of issues she became passionate about during her time working at a forensics laboratory concerning subjects like domestic violence and rape, and DNA backlogs. Her studio work has been featured in the Stained Glass Quarterly, Design NY, The Buffalo News, and Buffalo Rising.
Find out more about the SGAA’s 2024 conference here:
Conference 2024: Sand to Sash | The Stained Glass Association of America
Amy Valuck is a stained glass artist and conservator based in Southeastern Pennsylvania, and the current president of the American Glass Guild. She began her apprenticeship in 1998 at The Art of Glass in Media, PA, and in 2014 went on to establish her own studio, Amy Valuck Glass Art, now located in West Chester, PA. Her studio’s primary work is the restoration and conservation of historical windows from churches, universities, and private residences. As a conservator she specializes in complex lead work, plated windows, and replication painting. Valuck also maintains a personal art practice, producing autonomous stained glass panels for private commissions and public exhibition, including the AGG’s American Glass Now annual exhibit. Her personal work is heavily influenced by the fabrication and painting techniques of historical windows but frequently includes experimental fused glass elements.
Valuck is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, who earned her BFA degree in jewelry and light metals. Her work in jewelry earned awards including the first annual Cartier Prize, and the MJSA (Manufacturing Jewelers and Silversmiths’ Association) Award. She has served on the board of directors of the American Glass Guild since 2017 and has participated as a lecturer and instructor at several of the AGG’s annual conferences. Registration is now open for the 2024 Grand Rapids conference, July 9 – 14.
Find out more about the AGG’s 2024 conference here:
https://www.americanglassguild.org/events/agg-2024-conference-grand-rapids-mi
For further exploration of panel discussion topics: