Contrasting Forces: Weston Lambert’s Stone and Glass Sculpture
Talking Out Your Glass podcast
Release Date: 12/05/2024
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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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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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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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...
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The raw brilliance and color of glass are primary inspirations in Rita Shimelfarb’s work. The deeper she explores the technical side of working with glass, the more it leaves her in awe at the range of possibilities for something new and beautiful to emerge. Building upon the millennia-long tradition of stained glass art, Shimelfarb pushes her material beyond traditional imagery and conventional construction methods by utilizing both time-proven as well as innovative contemporary glass forming and painting techniques. By combining modern and traditional, play and purpose, she makes the...
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Combining technical skill with a strong aesthetic, flameworking pioneer Sally Prasch is known for her work that places other-worldly figures in glowing globes filled with rare gasses. She has also constructed portraits from broken shards of glass and is well known for her goblets made with coiled stems that allow them to bounce when handled. Her latest work incorporates cast bronze with glass. But perhaps Prasch’s greatest fulfillment has come from teaching. She has taught flameworking workshops at UrbanGlass, Brooklyn; the famous Niijima Glass School, Japan; Pilchuck Glass School, Stanwood,...
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Childhood experiences of life on a sailboat in the Bahamas and Caribbean left a profound mark on Kait Rhoads. The experience of growing up on the water has provided great inspiration for her artwork. The artist’s Sea Stones series hints at its watery origins. Each sculpture is a small world in itself, an intimate object you can hold in your hand. A talisman, the work looks almost molecular, like plankton carapaces as observed under a microscope. Rhoads states: “My work is inspired by nature and informed by memory. And, three oceans—the Caribbean, the Indian and the...
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Weston Lambert transforms semi-precious stones and found rocks into profoundly beautiful, time-defying glass sculptures. By incorporating an original process for laminating the two materials and by cold-working the surfaces of the glass and rock, the artist is able to bring his skill to bear on these objects that seamlessly transform from stone to glass and back again. Lambert’s work is about dualities and the balancing of contrasting forces. He’s looking for the place where transparency/opacity, and ephemeral/eternal coexist, each taking part in creating equilibrium. This dynamic...
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Current work by Jeremy Sinkus includes his Contemporary Art Nodules, inspired by collecting and focusing on the top 10 attributes that the artist and viewers found intriguing about glass objects. Simultaneously ancient and from the future, his Nodules combine texture and form with transparent windows that allow the viewer to explore unknown inner worlds. A former mineral collector and digger, Sinkus put down his chisel and picked up a torch when he realized his fondness for minerals and natural history was all encompassed in glass. Sinkus says: “Glass is geological....
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From his Micromorphisms to his Opticals and Pinwheels, Dan Alexander explores the mesmerizing world of optical illusions, where intricate designs and mind-bending patterns come to life in stunning glass artistry. From captivating sculptures to breathtaking installations, each piece in this collection is a testament to his artistry and craftsmanship. Much of Alexander’s inspiration comes from photographs he has taken or his travels. Looking at one micro-aspect of an object, he envisions how that small segment could be used in repetition to create an overall...
info_outlineWeston Lambert transforms semi-precious stones and found rocks into profoundly beautiful, time-defying glass sculptures. By incorporating an original process for laminating the two materials and by cold-working the surfaces of the glass and rock, the artist is able to bring his skill to bear on these objects that seamlessly transform from stone to glass and back again. Lambert’s work is about dualities and the balancing of contrasting forces. He’s looking for the place where transparency/opacity, and ephemeral/eternal coexist, each taking part in creating equilibrium. This dynamic relationship turns fragility into an asset and rigidity into liability.
Lambert states: “In the studio, I accelerate the slow violence of geological processes. My materials are engaged in a condensed passage of time—modified by my brief tenure, on a timeline charted by millennia, not decades. The heat of the kiln allows molten glass to nestle into stone and days of grinding/polishing simulate eons of erosion. In my pursuit of permanence, I create invulnerable, seamless objects that have been broken and mended outside of geological time.”
A sculptor based in Tacoma, Washington, Lambert’s primary media are glass, metal and stone. In 2007, he earned a BFA (Maxima Cum Laude), from the University of Hawaii at Manoa and in 2012, his MFA from Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana. In 2010 and again in 2020, the artist was awarded a full-tuition scholarship at Andersen Ranch Arts Center, Snowmass Village, Colorado. In 2014, he was the recipient of the prestigious Joan Mitchell Foundation Career Opportunity Grant, one of two such grants awarded nationally per year.
Lambert’s work has been exhibited worldwide, including SOFA Chicago, The Toyama International Glass Exhibit, and the Cheongju Craft Biennale in South Korea. As a public artist, Lambert has completed prominent commissions including Untitled, at Western State Hospital, Lakewood, Washington, 2023 and Currents, at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, Seattle, Washington, 2020. His works have been included in such publications as Sculpture Magazine and Glass Quarterly Magazine.
In 2024, Lambert’s work was exhibited at Smith and Vallee Gallery, Edison, Washington, and Taoxichuan Glass Studio Gallery, group exhibition, Jingdezhen, China, where he also lectured and demoed. The artist lectured/demoed at Chico State University, California, and on November 23 taught an online class, Making it on Social Media: Aligning Creativity, Integrity, and Studio Success. He has over 350K followers on Instagram. In March 2025, Lambert will participate in a group exhibition at Visu Contemporary, Miami Beach, Florida, and film a class on his process of combining glass and stone at Bullseye Glass Co., Portland, Oregon, available in late Spring.
Of his artwork, Lambert explains: “In the context of human lives, rock embodies strength, consistency, and timelessness. There’s safety in its solidity, but the natural world is in constant flux. Granite and sand share each other’s future—forever shattered and recast. Glass is delicate, but when combined with the durability of stone, the pairing embodies harmony.”