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...
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Jessica Loughlin’s Kiln Formed Glass: An Homage to the Observation of Light
Talking Out Your Glass podcast
Jessica Loughlin’s work is characterized by a strict reductive sensibility and restricted use of color. Fusing kiln formed sheets of opaque and translucent glass together in flat panels or in thin, geometric compositions and vessels, she alludes to shadow, reflection and refraction. Loughlin’s work is influenced by the flat landscapes and salt lakes of South Australia, and the recurring motif of the mirage appears in much of her work. Each piece makes its own poetic statement. “My work investigates space, seeing distance and understanding how wide-open spaces, particularly of the...
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The Glass Galaxies of Josh Simpson
Talking Out Your Glass podcast
Apollo 8, which launched on December 21, 1968, was the first mission to take humans to the moon and back. While the crew did not land on the moon’s surface, the flight was an important prelude to a lunar landing, testing the flight trajectory and operations getting there and back. Capt. James A Lovell, Apollo 8 astronaut, shared his memories of that historic mission: “Then, looking up I saw it, the Earth, a blue and white ball, just above the lunar horizon, 240,000 miles away…I put my thumb up to the window and completely hid the Earth. Just think, over five billion people,...
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Wesley Fleming: Flameworking the Realism of the Microcosmos
Talking Out Your Glass podcast
Wesley Fleming brings the fantastic realism of the microcosmos to life in glass. An ambassador for smaller denizens of the earth, his passion for nature sparks awe and curiosity in others. Growing up in the countryside, his favorite pastime was exploring beneath logs and rocks in the woods or reading science fiction and comic books. Hence the natural world and his own imagination became his muse. Says Fleming: “I hope to rekindle awe and curiosity for nature with my fantastic realism. I’ve focused more than two decades honing my flameworking skills and trying to capture the essence of...
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Robin and Julia Rogers: A Collaboration Resulting in Provocative Glass Sculpture
Talking Out Your Glass podcast
Physically and metaphorically Robin and Julia Rogers put their minds, hearts and hands together to create sculptural works in glass – their chosen material because of its inherent qualities of luminosity, viscosity, and seductive flow. Their inspiration is drawn from the natural world, personal experience, family life, music, psychology, and science. Robin and Julia state: “Complex and mystifying, the human mind drives us, but the subtle inner workings remain, to certain extent, unknown. Delving into the psyche, our work explores the human mind to reveal a metaphorical interior of...
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Flameworking 2024: Perspectives
Talking Out Your Glass podcast
Talking Out Your Glass podcast kicks off 2024 with our first episode of Season 9! This fascinating panel discussion on flameworking features four of the technique’s most well-known artists: Paul Stankard, Carmen Lozar, Dan Coyle aka coylecondenser and Trina Weintraub. At different points in their careers, these four artists compare and contrast their journeys and experiences working glass behind the torch. Considered a living master in the art of the paperweight, Paul Stankard’s work is represented in more than 75 museums around the world. Over his 52-year...
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Indre Bileris: Mastering Design and Painting for Liturgical, Educational, and Residential Glass Projects
Talking Out Your Glass podcast
Master Glass Painter at Judson Studios in Los Angeles, California, Indre Bileris earned a BFA in Illustration from Parsons School of Design and became involved in stained glass conservation during that same time at St. Ann and the Holy Trinity’s conservation program. Having been a conservator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Cloisters from 2007 to 2012, the artist arrived at the Judson Studios with an extensive body of design and painting work for liturgical, educational, and residential installations. Her hand can be seen in much of the painted work that comes out of the studio...
info_outlineAn artist with 33 years of experience working in stained glass, NancyNicholson combines fine art sensibility with seasoned craftsmanship. Using Boston and New York City architecture as a backdrop of inspiration, in 1989 the artist introduced a successful series of autonomous panels that explored the layering of light, color, and dynamic forms of the urban environment.
Eventually, the cityscape imagery and techniques Nicholson had mastered felt less compelling, signaling a need for change. But before those cues could be acted upon, routine knee surgery followed by back issues left the artist unable to walk for several months, much less work in the glass studio. During recuperation, life sized drawings of her body suspended in space replaced the physical work of glass.
Upon full recovery, when Nicholson returned to the glass studio, she found her psychic landscape altered. The meditation on her body and its aging process, instigated by her injury, retained its urgency. Simultaneously, the cityscapes felt increasingly remote and impersonal, as the drawings made during her convalescence took on more gravitas.
In contrast to our youth-centric culture, which tries to deny or disguise the effects of aging, Nicholson began to bravely explore existential questions about the topic, fueling a new body of work. Focused studies of her body capture energy and movement. Figures are handcarved, sandblasted, painted, and stained on glass to exploit the fragility and transparency of the material while enhancing the elusive qualities of gesture and emotion.
Navigating this artistic metamorphosis for five years now, Nicholson says: “While the impetus for that transition was a physical disability that brought my glass production to a dead stop, the need to change directions was already building. Now, with the figure drawings informing my glasswork, I am working in a way that is far more personal and important to me.”