Flameworking Pioneer Sally Prasch
Talking Out Your Glass podcast
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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Oceans of Emotion: Kait Rhoads’ Glass Sculpture
Talking Out Your Glass podcast
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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Contrasting Forces: Weston Lambert’s Stone and Glass Sculpture
Talking Out Your Glass podcast
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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Jeremy Sinkus’ Geologicalized Glass
Talking Out Your Glass podcast
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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The Artistry and Craftsmanship of Dan Alexander
Talking Out Your Glass podcast
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...
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Maria Sheets: Stained Glass, Conservation and Vitreonics
Talking Out Your Glass podcast
In her summer 2024 exhibition Trial By Fire at Core Art Space, Lakewood, Colorado, Maria Sheets exhibited a series of colorful, sculpturally dense, illuminated glass panels of portraits and landscapes created in a unique process that combines the mediums of traditional stained glass grisaille/enameling with fused glass “painting” known as Vitreonics. The technique was documented in Justin Monroe’s award-winning documentary Holy Frit. The movie traces artist/designer Tim Carey’s journey through making the world’s largest stained and fused glass window with the...
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Glassworks Ajeto and Ricardo Hoineff: IGS 2024
Talking Out Your Glass podcast
In 2021, the town of Nový Bor became the main organizer of the International Glass Symposium (IGS), and once again this small glassmaking town in the north of Bohemia will turn into a true world glassmaking metropolis for a few days. Each of the previous symposia was unique, and this year’s jubilee will be no different. Place and material are the unchanging basis of the tradition, but glassmaking and art are a living, leading and original phenomenon reflecting the times. This year’s IGS will take place on a much larger scale than previous years. The number of organizers and...
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Gene Koss: From Farm to Flame
Talking Out Your Glass podcast
Gene Koss uses glass as a medium of pure sculptural expression resulting in monumental sculptures of cast glass, steel and light. He developed innovative techniques to transform his memories of the mechanized Wisconsin farm of his youth into foundry-based glass sculptures. He combines glass and steel found objects to create small-scale sculptures that often also serve as studies for his larger-scale works. Opening on September 20, 2024 and running through February 9, 2025, The Bergstrom Mahler Museum of Glass (BMM), Neenah, Wisconsin, presents a major solo exhibition of Koss’ work: From...
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Ryan Thompson: From Blown Away 4 to Huron Street Studio
Talking Out Your Glass podcast
Those who watched to completion the hit Netflix competition series Blown Away 4, will no doubt remember Ryan Thompson’s final gallery installation, Where You Are is Where You Need to Be. In all black glass, he created large vessel forms that served as sentinels to the recording of time. A blown glass pendulum in the center of the room recorded each moment in a footed reliquary of white sand below it. Its existential message spoke to the viewer silently. Permanently. Thompson states: “This installation was created to satisfy a need to slow down, contemplate, and analyze...
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Peter Layton and the Legacy of London Glassblowing
Talking Out Your Glass podcast
Artist, pioneer, and mentor, Peter Layton is one of the founding fathers of British Studio Glass. He discovered the art form while teaching ceramics in the US in the mid-1960s and has played a major part in elevating glass from an industrial medium to a highly collectable art form. Most importantly, he gave it a home in the UK. This month, London Glassblowing presents Glass Heaven, an exhibition uniting two exceptional glass artists: Layton and Tim Rawlinson. The show opened August 2 and will run through September 1, 2024. Representing the next generation of glass talent, Rawlinson...
info_outlineCombining 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, WA; Penland School of Craft, Penland, NC; Pittsburgh Glass Center, Pittsburgh, PA; Grove Gas & Light Co, University of CA, San Diego, CA; Ingalena Klenell’s Studio, Sweden, and many more.
States Prasch: “Teaching has always been a part of my life. My parents were teachers, and both my brother and sister have also been teachers. Lloyd Moore, my first teacher, found it very important not to have any secrets but to share your knowledge with others – share your love of glass and making things. He taught thousands of people, and I continue in his tradition. Lloyd started me teaching at age 15. It was scary for me to teach adults, but made me practice things over and over again. We started people on soft glass tubing and then worked them up to borosilicate.”
Prasch began her career at age 13 with Moore working as a part-time apprentice at the University of Nebraska and then worked as a glassblowing instructor for the City of Lincoln Recreation Department. Later on, she took workshops from some of the best glassblowers of the time including William Bernstein, Ray Schultz, and Lino Tagliapietra. She attended the University of Kansas from 1977 to 1980 and received a Bachelor’s Degree in Fine Art in Glass and Ceramics.
After college, Prasch started her glass art business that is still active today. She soon began to receive recognition for her artistic work and was selected for the Corning Museum of Glass’ New Glass Review in 1993. The artist has been attending Glass Art Society (GAS) Conferences since 1978 and continues to participate by giving demonstrations and lec-moes, serving on the GAS Advisory Board and working with the organization’s History Committee. In 1985, Prasch received her Certificate in Scientific Glass Technology from Salem Community College (SCC), Carneys Point, New Jersey. Soon afterwards, she obtained a position with AT&T doing large quartz work for the semiconductor industry.
Continuing with her studies, Prasch earned her degree in Applied Science from SCC in 1986. Later that year she got a job as a scientific glassblower and glass instructor at the University of Massachusetts. She has worked as a scientific glassblower at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst (UMass Amherst), Syracuse University, and the University of Vermont, Burlington.
Currently, Prasch is the scientific glassblower and also teaches Scientific Glassblowing and the Properties of Glass to graduate students in Chemistry, Art and Physics at University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She is a member of the American Scientific Glassblowers Society (ASGS) and the director of the Northeast section. Her ASGS experience includes participating in seminars on such subjects like vacuum technology, quartz technology, and glass sealing. She has instructed a neon class with David Wilson, presented a paper on her work with the discovery of the gravitational wave, and co-chaired symposiums.
In 2025, Prasch will exhibit her work in Glass Lifeforms at the Pittsburgh Glass Center, opening February 7 and running through April 20. Her work will also be on view in Glasstastic at the Brattleboro Art Museum, Brattleboro, VT, March 22 through November 1. The artist will teach at the Pittsburgh Glass Center, Pittsburgh, PA, from July 28 – August 1. After curating the annual glass exhibit at Leverett Crafts and Arts in Leverett, MA for the month of November, Prasch will have a one-week fall residency with George Kennard at SCC, as well as a residency at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
In 2026, the Herter main gallery at UMass Amherst will host a solo exhibit of Prasch’s work from January 29 through May 8. The opening will take place Friday, April 24, 2026, from 5 to 7 p.m. with an artist talk from 6 to 6:30 p.m. Her work will also be on display at the Science Library and at the Durfee Conservatory at UMass during the show.
As Prasch develops new work, including pieces for Laura Donefer’s 2026 Glass Fashion Show to be held at GAS, she continues to teach and fabricate scientific glassware at UMass. She says: “I have taught on average 25 students a month for my entire career, only taking a break during the pandemic. Obviously, teaching is a part of me, and I gain so much. It is not about teaching, not about glass, not about notoriety, not about pay – it is about the energy between people. It is about trust.”
UPCOMING EVENT LINKS
Spring and Fall semester classes and weekend workshops at the University of Massachusetts – Amherst
https://www.umass.edu/natural-sciences/research/scientific-glassblowing-laboratory
February 7 – April 20, 2025 – Glass Lifeforms Exhibit, Pittsburgh Glass Center
https://www.pittsburghglasscenter.org/event/exhibition-lifeforms/
March 22 – November 1, 2025 – Glasstastic, Brattleboro Art Museum, Brattleboro VT
https://www.brattleboromuseum.org/2024/09/06/glasstastic-2025/
March 21 – 23, 2025 – International Flameworking Conference, Salem Community College, Carneys Point, NJ
https://www.salemcc.edu/glass/international-flameworking-conference
April 5, 2025 – Northeast American Scientific Glassblowers Section Meeting, Cornell University
https://northeast.asgs-glass.org/
May 14 – 17, 2025 –Glass Art Society Conference
https://www.glassart.org/conference/texas-2025/
July 28 – August 1, 2025 – Teaching at the Pittsburgh Glass Center, Pittsburgh PA
https://canvas.pittsburghglasscenter.org/classes/1632
Fall, 2025 – one week residency with George Kennard at Salem Community College, Carneys Point, NJ
https://www.salemcc.edu/glass
Fall, 2025 – one week residency at the University of Massachusetts
https://www.umass.edu/natural-sciences/research/scientific-glassblowing-laboratory
January 29 – May 8, 2026 – Exhibit at the Herter Gallery, University of Massachusetts, Amherst Opening April 24, 5 – 7 p.m. with artist talk 6:00 – 6:30pm
https://www.umass.edu/herterartgallery/herter-art-gallery
January 29 – May 8, 2026 Exhibit at the Science and Engineering Library and the Durfee Conservatory
https://www.library.umass.edu/sel/
https://www.umass.edu/natural-sciences/research/greenhouses/durfee-conservatory