The Pain and Pleasure of Karisa Gregorio’s Stained Glass
Talking Out Your Glass podcast
Release Date: 02/07/2026
The Pain and Pleasure of Karisa Gregorio’s Stained Glass
Talking Out Your Glass podcast
Karisa Gregorio’s autonomous stained glass panels explore themes of sex, death, God, the Devil, pleasure, temptation, intimacy, love, lust, and indulgence. The relationship between glass and light in stained glass allows her to create works that feel alive. Using traditional processes as well as techniques developed by modern stained glass master Judith Schaechter, the depth and intimacy of Gregorio’s materials create a world in which the pleasures of the flesh and emotions of the heart are equally illuminated and illuminating. Having received her BFA in Craft + Material studies, with a...
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Stephen Dee Edwards: Studio Glass Pioneer, Glass Caster, Educator
Talking Out Your Glass podcast
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Derek Hunt: Inspiring the Next Generation of Stained Glass Artists
Talking Out Your Glass podcast
Derek Hunt is an award-winning glass artist and educator, a Fellow of the British Society of Master Glass Painters, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and an accredited stained glass conservator. He designs and makes glass artworks for public spaces, private homes and churches using methods to include traditional stained glass as well as working with new techniques such as screen and digital printing to push the creative boundaries of the medium. In addition to creating and restoring stained glass works, Hunt hosts specialist Master Classes throughout the year at his studio in...
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Gemma Hollister: Narrative Structure and Divine Light
Talking Out Your Glass podcast
Upon graduation from the Tyler School of Art and Architecture with a BFA in glass, Gemma Hollister was awarded the Windgate-Lamar fellowship from the Center for Craft, which allowed her and her partner to start a small studio in Philadelphia, Antolini Glass Co. While balancing her personal artistic practice and work as a production glassblower, the artist recently appeared on Netflix’s Blown Away: Extreme Heat. The show inspired new work, which she made both in her own studio and during a residency at Monterey Glassworks. States Hollister: “Blown Away gave me a chance to...
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Hana Hastings, Sand and Fire Works: Using Social Networks to Successfully Market Stained Glass Patterns, Classes and Artwork
Talking Out Your Glass podcast
Using Etsy for pattern sales, Patreon for teaching classes and Instagram for promoting her artwork, Hana Hastings, Sand and Fire Works, Grimsby, Ontario, Canada, has acquired a substantial following for her offerings in stained glass. Wanting to differentiate herself from the more traditional glass designs and commonly seen pattern work, Hastings brought nature and natural subjects into the homes of her patrons by experimenting with 3D sculpture and unique textures and colors of glass. Mastering her marketing efforts on social media, the artist grew a following significant enough to dedicate...
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Michael Meilahn: An Artist Farmer’s Focus on Corn and GMOs
Talking Out Your Glass podcast
Michael (Mick) Meilahn’s body of work, which includes glass sculpture and large glass and multi-media installations, intertwines the artist’s investigation into agriculture, crop production, genetic food modification, and the ancient history of corn. Primordial Shift, a quintessential example of Meilahn’s later installations, consisted of 32 hand-blown glass ears of corn averaging 4-feet high, suspended on stalks of cord with leaves of cast bronze on a backdrop of video projected to create an illusion of gentle swaying in the breeze and surround-sound audio that included the...
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Austin Stern - 111325 3.40PM
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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Michael Endo: Using Kiln Formed Glass to Explore the Spaces in Between
Talking Out Your Glass podcast
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: The Revealing Quality of Glass Carving
Talking Out Your Glass podcast
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 Sullivan: The Cactus Guy
Talking Out Your Glass podcast
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...
info_outlineKarisa Gregorio’s autonomous stained glass panels explore themes of sex, death, God, the Devil, pleasure, temptation, intimacy, love, lust, and indulgence. The relationship between glass and light in stained glass allows her to create works that feel alive. Using traditional processes as well as techniques developed by modern stained glass master Judith Schaechter, the depth and intimacy of Gregorio’s materials create a world in which the pleasures of the flesh and emotions of the heart are equally illuminated and illuminating.
Having received her BFA in Craft + Material studies, with a major in glass and minor in figurative illustration from the University of the Arts in 2016, Gregorio was named a 2025 MacPherson-Wortley Emerging Artist and received the Glass Art Society (GAS) Emerging Artist Award. Generously funded by Nancy and Roger MacPherson and Barbara and Richard Wortley, the MacPherson-Wortley Emerging Artist Award is presented annually to three exemplary emerging artists in the glass community. This prestigious juried award includes a cash prize, a special lecture slot at the annual GAS Conference, a digital exhibition catalog, and a residency at the Chrysler Museum of Art Perry Glass Studio.
“We are honored by the MacPhersons and Wortleys’ visionary commitment to emerging artists. Their support allows us to expand what our Emerging Artist Awardees receive; a larger cash prize and a residency can be remarkable opportunities for emerging artists as they seek to expand their practice,” said Brandi P. Clark, GAS executive director.
In 2024, Gregorio’s work was featured in a solo exhibition Worldly Pleasures at Rick Prigg’s Gallery 26 in Philadelphia. Serving as adjunct professor in glass at The Crefeld School as well as coldworker at John Pomp Studios, TA for Glenn Carter Assemblage at Pilchuck Glass School, studio assistant for Judith Schaechter, and TA for Wes Valdez and David King, Gregorio has been the owner of Thirst Glass since 2020.
Gregorio aims to one day create a cathedral in which enlightenment comes from the
experiences in life that, in her opinion, make life worth living. She seeks to create an
environment in which relationships between the viewer and work, and the relationships between people, are not limited, but allowed to be felt and fully indulged in.