Talking Out Your Glass podcast

Peter Hermansson, based in Jamshog, Sweden, is an internationally acclaimed master glass artist whose work bridges contemporary innovation and historical tradition. His artistry captures the essence of Swedish glassmaking, reinterpreted through the lens of his distinctive, graphically expressive graffiti-inspired style.

A graduate of the renowned Orrefors National Glass School, Hermansson has spent over two decades refining and evolving the Swedish glass techniques of Graal and Ariel. These methods have become hallmarks of his signature style, celebrated for their intricate craftsmanship and creative depth. Central to Hermansson's practice is storytelling, which he achieves through sandblasted graphic illustrations on the surfaces of his glass vessels. This technique infuses each piece with a dynamic visual narrative, reinforcing the profound connection between fine art and craft.

Graal is a century-old Swedish technique that embeds narrative imagery within blown glass. Hermansson constructs a blank from multiple thin layers of colored glass, then masks and sandblasts through them to build the motif—a meticulous process that can take up to two weeks. Once reheated and blown, the imagery expands, bends, and wraps around the vessel. This layered construction allows the exterior and interior to carry entirely different colors and motifs while maintaining a remarkably thin wall. After two decades of experimentation, Hermansson continues to push Graal beyond its traditional limits, developing new tools and methods that transform the vessel into a complex, multidimensional image.

Hermansson's journey into glassblowing started when he set foot in Pukebergs Glassworks, nestled in the Swedish city of Nybro, where he fell in love with the historical vibration. The imposing walls, the smell of propane, the radiating heat from industrial furnaces, and the stories shared by factory workers caught his imagination. Eager to learn more about glass, he enrolled in a two-year program to acquire basic glassworking skills, followed by three and a half year as an apprentice at a Swedish master glassblower's studio.

However, it was not until 2012, during Hermansson's first sold-out show called Dark Was the Night, that he made the shift from music to pursue a full-time career as a glass artist. He opened his own blowing studio in 2019, 13 STUDIO, in collaboration with his friend Bjørn Friborg. The workshop is located inside the glass factory of Målerås, an area with a strong history of glass making dating back to 1740 and which earned the name of kingdom of glass.

In early 2025, Hermansson's work was exhibited in his debut solo exhibition in the US, titled ALTER EGO, held at Method & Concept, Naples, Florida. Writes Chad Jensen, Director/Curator: "Hermansson's work is profoundly exciting and unparalleled in the world of glass. Peter is a rare talent who seamlessly balances concept and craft, authentically finding his voice and expression through the interplay of material and process."

With current exhibitions in Venice in Homo Faber's An Island of Light and in New York with The Future Perfect in the exhibition USE ME, I`M FRAGILE, Hermansson has a full schedule for the remainder of this year and into the next. He'll be exhibiting glass along with his lithographic prints at Galleri Nord in Orebro, Sweden, from November 28 through December 12, 2026. Next year, events include a solo exhibition at Traver gallery in Seattle in April; and the upcoming GAS conference, which will be held in Kosta, Sweden in June. There, Hermansson will collaborate with Raven Skyriver and work as a gaffer for his wife Kirsten Hermansson at her demo.

Says Hermansson: "I went from being a musician to learning to blow glass. It felt similar to learning a new instrument. I think the same synapses in the brain get activated when you play music and blow glass. The timing, the playing together in the band, the tonality, the groove, the swing and the beat, it all feels like playing a concert"

From his 1999 Millennium Window for St. Mary's, Masham, to his 2022 Ukrainian Canadian Window for St. James, Paddington, and beyond, the UK's Glenn Carter has proven again and again the emotional power of light and glass. In his body of work commissioned for both religious and domestic buildings and exhibitions, strong personal narrative and symbolism are signature elements.

Says Carter: "Stained glass windows are amongst the few objects that cast no shadow. Instead, they radiate colored light, transforming a space into an illuminated area, a place in which enlightenment is potentially more than a metaphor. Historically, the most sublime windows, secular and religious, are examples of light becoming an opportunity for contemplation and transformation from darkness to light. Stained glass is reminiscent of music, and its impact is felt profoundly."

A freelance glass maker based in Plymouth, England, Carter's early history with the medium includes studies at Portsmouth College of Art 1974 to 1977. He served as glass lecturer at Plymouth College of Art, now Plymouth University of The Arts, from 2012 to 2018 and at North Lands Creative Glass in Lybster, Caithness, Scotland, with glass artist Richard Whiteley. Carter has also been a visiting instructor in the US at Pilchuck Glass School, Stanwood, WA; UrbanGlass, Brooklyn, NY; University of the Arts, Philadelphia, PA; Tyler School of Art, Philadelphia, PA; and Rochester Institute of Technology, NY.

Holding an MVA from the glass department at the Australian National University in Canberra, Carter's cast glass reveals glass forms inspired by the architecture and landscape of this period and linked by his drawings. Beginning in 2009, this sculptural series continues today.

From 1995 through 2000, Carter was part of the conservation and restoration department of Lincoln Cathedral Workshops, working on the highly prestigious 13th-century Deans Eye window. This gave him a thorough grounding in accessing and developing an ethical and considered approach to conserving and restoring historic stained glass – an experience that continues to inform and consolidate his practice to this day.

An elected Fellow of the British Society of Master Glass Painters (BSMGP), Carter's considerable number of design projects across the UK have been carried out on behalf of a wide range of churches and domestic buildings spanning the 13th to the 21st centuries. These projects include a broad range of painted glass restorations utilizing selective restoration procedures, glazing options and installation. The studio has also undertaken numerous plain glazing and quarried leaded light scheme of works, including ventilation solutions.

As UK commissions for larger buildings are scarce at the moment, Carter currently focuses his practice on restoration and personal work including cast glass or painted and leaded light projects. Constantly drawing, he has begun printing images that may be adapted to glass via painting, staining, leading, sandblasting or engraving.

In 2026, Hannah Gibson created Recycling Narratives, No Matter the Weight, in collaboration with textile artist Naomi Beevers. This collaborative work was shared with the public at Laura Donefer's Glass Fashion Show held at the Glass Art Society conference at the Corning Museum of Glass in June. The work consists of thousands of individual pieces of recycled cast glass, each made from donated glass carrying its own story and hand assembled into a wearable dress. Created from glass contributed by people around the world, the installation explores the emotional and physical weight carried through illness, loss, hope and survival, transforming individual experiences into a collective portrait of resilience, compassion and connection.

Working predominantly with recycled glass, Gibson transforms glass that has played a meaningful role in people's lives, from medicine bottles and insulin vials to perfume bottles, windscreens and everyday domestic objects, into cast sculpture that preserves the histories embedded within the material. Every object is carefully selected for the story it carries, allowing experiences of healing, celebration, loss and survival to become inseparable from the finished work. Through this process, she invites audiences to reconsider the social, emotional and cultural significance of the objects that shape our lives.

Growing up at the foothills of Snowdonia, overlooking the Menai Strait, Gibson developed an early fascination with geology, leading her to study Geology at the University of Edinburgh. While there, an interest in glass grew into a lifelong passion. She later completed a Master's in Glass at The University College of Arts in Farnham, where she began developing the bodies of work Recycling Narratives and Whispering Sweet Nothings. Returning as Artist in Residence, her research explored materiality and the transformative potential of recycled glass, laying the foundations for a practice that continues to investigate the relationship between object, memory and cultural heritage.

Gibson's work has received international recognition, including the Award of Excellence at Habatat Detroit in 2024, First Prize in the Glass Art Society's Trace: An Exploration of Sustainable Glass Art in 2023, being shortlisted for the Coburg Prize for Contemporary Glass in 2022, and being Highly Commended in The Glass Prize in both 2021 and 2022. Her work has been exhibited internationally at the Corning Museum of Glass, the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, the Imagine Museum, the National Liberty Museum and the Royal Scottish Academy, as well as at SOFA Chicago, COLLECT, PAN Amsterdam, the British Glass Biennale, Habatat Detroit Fine Art, Habatat North Carolina, The Etienne Gallery, Gallery TEN and London Glassblowing. Her work will be on view in The Other Glass: The Art of Recycled Glass, at the Stourbridge Glass Museum, Wordsley, August 28 through February 27, 2027; and also at The British Glass Biennale in St Helen's, UK, from August 28 through November 1, 2026.

https://www.stourbridgeglassmuseum.org.uk/featured-exhibitions/

Alongside her studio practice, Gibson creates public art, delivers lectures and workshops internationally, and continues to expand the possibilities of recycled glass. Gibson's work demonstrates how materials that have completed their original purpose can become enduring works of art, preserving personal narratives while contributing to wider conversations about sustainability, memory and our relationship with the material world.

States Gibson: "For almost three decades, my practice has explored the creative and technical potential of recycled glass. As both a glass artist and a geologist, I am fascinated by the stories held within materials and the traces of human experience they contain. Through recycling and recasting these objects, I seek to preserve their histories while creating new forms and meanings."

Using glass as a medium to capture and refract light, David Yeshia seeks to freeze moments of transition, combining myriad elements to manipulate their visual and symbolic effects. Also a metaphor for his life at the time, Yeshia was smashing glass and rebuilding the fragments into something beautiful. A new breed of "artrepreneur," he emerged from the Covid pandemic bringing art out of the gallery and into the public marketplace by developing accessible and affordable works.

A self-taught Canadian glass artist known for his signature fused glass techniques, Yeshia has developed innovative methods including his "Glass Netting" technique, "Glascade" and signature "Free Mosaic" forms exploring glass as both structure and light. He was nominated for the Emerging Glass Artist of the Year Award by the Glass Art Society and has created sculptural works for government commissions and collectors across Canada. His work is sold at Walt Disney World, and his process-focused storytelling has attracted over 400,000 followers across social media, with his videos reaching tens of millions of views.

Yeshia attended Concordia University Fine Arts, graduating in 2013 with a Bachelor of Arts Degree with a double major in Theater and Religious Studies. In 2017, as an exotic mushroom cultivator in Montreal, Yeshia's business was hit hard by the Covid pandemic's impact on the restaurant and food industries. At 30 years old, he moved back in with his parents in the countryside just outside of Pembroke, Ontario—emotionally drained, uncertain about the future, and feeling like a failure. Dejected, without direction, he began to experiment with glass in the stained glass studio of his father, Jeffrey Melamed, an architect turned stained glass artist.

Says Yeshia: "When I was struggling and trying to rebuild my life, my family rallied around me. Their enthusiasm for my work gave me the encouragement and confidence to keep going. My mother began attending markets, my father helped with displays, shows, and accounting, and my sister brought her creativity and many great product ideas."

Yeshia's business Artglas has expanded to Markham, Ontario, and now employs a staff of seven. Early on, a pivotal meeting with Disney's Keith Bryan inspired the artist's early series of fused glass art and eventually led to his ongoing contract to design and produce ornaments for Disney.

In September 2026, Artglas will return to exhibit in "The Transparent Breath," an International exhibition of glass jewelry held at Venice Glass Week. Specializing in experimental fusing techniques to create contemporary glass jewelry that represents the Canadian identity, Yeshia's Venice collection showcases his unique talents of incorporating 24-karat gold and silver into the glass.

"This will be our fifth time at Venice Glass Week. It was an honor to be amongst some of the greatest glass artists of our time, in one of the world's most historic hubs of the arts," said Yeshia. "And it was overwhelming connecting with artists from all over the world, sharing our work and creativity in such an inspiring environment."

In 2027, Yeshia's company will also expand its online education and subscriber platforms, open a gallery and second studio space, and create more room for one-of-a-kind and conceptual work. Artglas also has new commercial projects in development, including a Disney concept still awaiting approval.

Says Yeshia: "As Artglas grew, I had to learn how to wear many different hats, including artist, maker, employer, marketer, content creator, educator, salesperson, and business owner, while still preserving the meaning, symbolism, and quality of the work."

Demonstrating at the 2026 Glass Art Society conference at the Studio of the Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, New York, 24-year-old Jack Spitzer impressed the standing-room-only crowd as he created a vessel form from his Stochastic Series. The young glassblowing phenom was met with enthusiastic applause as he carried out a technical move known as "The Laydown."

Born in July of 2025, Spitzer's Stochastic Series started as opaque vessels and transformed into the current transparent cane vessels. The newer work debuted at Sandra Ainsley Gallery last week. These new vessels explore color, form, pattern, and gesture. Each piece pulses with energy, balancing technical precision with spontaneity.

Says Spitzer: "The Stochastic vessels are all about the pattern. The pattern is unique in the way that I do it. I've never seen this pattern made in glass before. The canes are created in the hotshop and then manipulated into the squiggle shapes. They are then picked back up in the hotshop in a very compressed format. Very traditional venetian cane techniques— with an innovative twist…… or you could say squiggle."

With work formed around a strong grasp of the fundamentals of glassblowing, Spitzer enjoys exploring and creating contemporary themes using traditional techniques. He likes to use basic shapes and skills to express the craftsmanship of the bubble in work that is constantly changing and growing.

Born in Tacoma, Washington, Spitzer is a product of the Pacific Northwest glass scene. His early exposure to the medium, influenced by his grandmother's involvement with the Museum of Glass, led him to begin blowing glass at age 12. He spent his middle school and high school years at the Hilltop Artists program, a youth development arts nonprofit in Tacoma operating deeply impactful programs since 1994 with broad community support and a track record of success.Hilltop Artists uses glass art to connect young people from diverse cultural and economic backgrounds to better futures.

Spitzer, who sets the standard for the younger generation of glass makers, has been apprenticing for Dante Marioni and working on Dale Chihuly's glassblowing team for the last three years. His early connection to the material and its history has shaped his own practice rooted in tradition, yet driven by innovation. Spitzer is represented by Sandra Ainsley Gallery in Toronto and Tom Hawk Gallery in Columbus, Ohio. In September 2026, he will demonstrate at the 11th International Glass Festival held in Odunpazarı, Eskişehir, Turkey. In 2027, he'll return as a gaffer to Pilchuck Glass School, Stanwood, Washington.

Over the past 55 plus years, John Gilbert Luebtow has become one of the most respected names in contemporary glass sculpture. Inspired by Friedrich Froebel, the inventor of kindergarten, the artist developed innovative technical processes in glass-making, introducing and incorporating gesture and expressive qualities into impeccably finished sculptural components. A student of Harvey Littleton, Mark Peiser and others, Luebtow explored blown, cast, and fused glass, as well as other techniques.

Lois Lambert Gallery, Santa Monica, California, presented Retrospective – From 1972 to 2023, a recent exhibition of work by 82-year-old Luebtow. Lambert wrote: "Luebtow has been creating art for over 55 years, specializing in kiln formed glass, and has become one of the most important names in contemporary glass sculpture. He is most known for his innovation in the technical processes of working with glass, developing his own methods and even building his own tools for creating large-scale glass sculptures and installations up to 25 feet tall.

At the heart of Luebtow's artistic philosophy is a curiosity about the processes of creation and a commitment to forging something entirely new. Luebtow's work integrates glass with architecture, becoming equal parts artistic expression and engineering endeavors. Despite his skilled background in drawing, painting, and ceramics, Luebtow ultimately has chosen glass as his primary medium, as 'no other material deals with light, line, movement, change, intensity…all things visual…as glass does, while also paralleling life, having an inner and outer self, and an internal and external presence or being.'

Inspiration for Luebtow's work can be found in everything that is experienced in life, pairing beauty along with the reality of life's struggles. 'The events of our times, then and now, affect everything we do and are allowed to do. We are what we have experienced and what we remember.' Luebtow's sculptures, though not limited to, can be categorized by two different themes: political/social commentary and the abstraction of beauty. Many of Luebtow's sculptures use images of the American flag to reflect on and process political and social happenings. Other works utilize linear and geometric forms with added surface embellishment, to create technically perfect investigations of beauty and abstraction."

Exploring rhythm and movement of line in sculptural form, Luebtow developed his Linear Form Series of cast and slumped glass sculpture. Working on a large scale required engineering skills to design and build kilns as large as 14' long x 10' wide x 4' tall to produce the elements for large scale architectural installations. Working with float glass, Luebtow left his mark on architectural spaces in and around Los Angeles, where his studio is located, and the country. His art required the design and building of equipment and development of processes that were almost as much art as the art itself. Projects such as Invenire, Ventus Vitae, and Sapere Aude were groundbreaking aesthetic and technical highlights of his career as a sculptor.

Luebtow, a Milwaukee, Wisconsin native, holds a BA from California Lutheran College, and two distinct MFAs from UCLA (one in ceramics and one in glass). Since 1966, Luebtow has exhibited in over 175 exhibitions throughout the United States and abroad, including exhibitions at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA; Tacoma Art Museum, WA; Zimmer Museum, CA; Corning Museum, NY; Carnegie Museum, PA; Oakland Museum of Art, CA; Santa Monica Museum of Art, CA; Louisville Art Museum, KY; Manhattan Beach Art Museum, CA; and Orange County Museum of Art, CA. His work has been commissioned by major public and private corporations including Hewlett-Packard (HP), ARCO (Atlantic Richfield), American Airlines, NESTLÉ (Carnation), and the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla. Over 160 articles have been published about Luebtow's work.

Wrote Shana Nys Dambrot for Patricia Correa Gallery: "John Luebtow has consistently addressed a quadrum of fundamental sculptural issues throughout his career: line, form, space, and light. These are broad considerations, to be sure; to a certain extent, they are inherent to all visual art media. What is significant in Luebtow's fidelity to this set of issues is not only his tenacity in the unraveling of their mysterious laws, but also the extraordinarily wide range of approaches he has drawn to them. The mystery he pursues is the technical spiritual identity of his medium. He searches within the sovereign form of his subjects for the abstract evidence of the energetic rhythm of movement."

For a full review of his career, Luebtow has written and published Glass, A Life Time of Creating,available now.

Cedric Mitchell is a multidisciplinary designer, glass artist, and cultural tastemaker successfully combining elements including craft, utility, and visual culture. His work is rooted in handmaking but reaches beyond any single medium. He designs objects that carry energy, emotion, and intention – pieces meant to live with people.

Says Mitchell: "My design language is what I call modern funk. It is defined by bold color, playful geometry, and confident forms balanced by structure and refinement. I draw inspiration from music, movement, architecture, and everyday rituals. Whether I am working on lighting, furniture, or collectible objects, my goal remains the same. To create work that feels alive, expressive, and deeply human."

Cedric Mitchell Design is not just a studio; it is a platform for craft-driven innovation across categories where functional objects, sculptural works, and cultural storytelling coexist. This year is shaping up to be a big one for Mitchell, who recently launched a new body of work through JOOPITER, further pushing his practice into collectible design. Alongside that, he continues to develop new lighting and furniture pieces, leaning more into sculptural, functional objects and expanding his modern funk language across materials.

In October, Mitchell will be showing work at ComplexCon, a large-scale cultural festival that showcases design, fashion, music, and streetwear. He chose to present work in that context because, as he states, "my practice has always been about bridging craft with contemporary culture. It's an opportunity to place hand-blown glass and collectible design in front of a broader audience that doesn't typically encounter it in traditional gallery settings."

Originally from Oklahoma, where he first encountered studio glass while recording at a Tulsa music studio, Mitchell learned glassblowing at Tulsa Glassblowing School, where he eventually became an apprentice and an instructor. Now based in Los Angeles, he has developed glassware collections, collaborated with high-profile clients such as Nike, and served as the events and resource manager at Crafting the Future, an organization that supports BIPOC craft artists. Mitchell's Kinetic Glasses, which swivel on a glass ball, were featured on the cover of the Summer 2024 issue of American Craft.

During his 2023 residency at The Studio of the Corning Museum of Glass, Mitchell successfully explored many different hotshop techniques for creating patterns paired with color theory research. He delved into chromatherapy theory and his extensive experimentation yielded unique color combinations in both transparent and opaque glass. The artist has also completed residencies at Penland School of Craft and Pilchuck Glass School. He developed Cedric Mitchell Design in 2018 where he creates blown glass for retailers nationwide and is currently developing an eclectic line of lighting.

Mitchell will be teaching at Tulsa Glassblowing School in June and at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in July of 2026. On the studio side, Mitchell continues to grow his direct-to-consumer work with glassware collections like Kinetic Glass and Chroma Stack, while building toward larger-scale projects and brand collaborations. Mitchell says, "This year is really about refining the vision and positioning the work at the intersection of craft, design, and culture."

An artist and educator, C. Matthew Szösz has established a practice that revolves around experimentation and investigation of techniques and material, with a focus on understanding the ways in which physical objects and events transform into intellectual and emotional experiences. He operates and is interested in the space that exists between design, craft and fine art.

Wrote William Warmus in Glass, the UrbanGlass Art Quarterly: "So each Szösz project represents a unique inquiry into outcomes driven by curiosity, inspiration, and technical opportunity. Attempting to wrestle these diverse series into unified categories is to limit the creative variation and diversity of each, to try to name the style. Perhaps it is best to list some of his most important investigations, summarize the findings, and enjoy the artifacts of Szösz's subversive and yet disciplined and meticulous process."

Since receiving his MFA(Glass) from Rhode Island School of Design, Szösz has been recognized internationally with awards such as the Irvine Borowsky Prize, the Jutta-Cuny Franz Prize, and a Tiffany Foundation Grant, and has completed numerous residencies in the US, Europe, Asia and Australia. He enjoys working as an educator, and has taught at ASP Wrøcław, Rietveld Akademie, Virginia Commonwealth University, University of Washington, University of Hawai'i, Pilchuck Glass School, Penland School of Crafts, and Bildwerk Frauenau and others, and has lectured and given numerous workshops around the world. He is the founding member of the curatorial group Hyperopia Projects and was Executive Director of Public Glass, a non-profit public access studio in San Francisco.

Szösz's work has been exhibited nationally and internationally and is represented in private collections and public institutions in the United States, Australia, Europe and Japan, including at the Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, NY, the Renwick Gallery/Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC, the Toyama City Museum of Glass, Toyama, Japan, and Het Glazenhuis, Lommel, Belgium. His career has allowed him to meet and work with friends, colleagues and collaborators across four continents and dozens of institutions. He currently lives in Seattle with his wife, Anna Mlasowsky.

Recently, Szösz completed an IASPIS residency in Sweden, administered by the International Arts Grants Committee there. Later in the year, he will work at a residency in Lisbon organized by Maria Morales Lam, through her studio Lo Invisible. In the next two years, he will be visiting a pair of universities in China and teaching at Pilchuck Glass School in the summer of 2027.

In between, Szösz is finishing up a commission for SeaTac airport that has been the main focus of his practice for the past three years. The project, titled Jonah, converts a part of SeaTac's north main terminal, an escalator well and a surrounding mezzanine, into a highly abstracted version of Jonah's whale. The installation has been broken into two parts - a larger, more architectural part that creates two articulated glass walls that form the body of the whale, which was installed in December, and a more sculptural part that is scheduled for installation in September - a suspended, lighted piece that roughly corresponds to a whale's mouth holding a Pearl.

Says Szösz: "There are a number of metaphors and associations between the Jonah story and air travel, and I particularly liked the idea of the whale being a meta-space, something that has a long tradition in stained glass. I was also attracted to the apocalyptic overtones of the Jonah story in view of the current American political and environmental situation."

In contrast, the personal objects and videos Szösz creates are the result of performance-based experiments documenting a deep knowledge and unbridled desire to allow the material to lead him. The artist describes his practice as "an attempt to maximize serendipity, and to allow a project to be guided by material and consequence, arriving, in the end, in an unfamiliar and unpredicted landscape. A successful project should not only be surprising but should also achieve an identity independent of the artist, and to at least some degree, escape his control and mastery."

You might imagine that if you were born and raised on the island of Murano in Italy, with forefathers and relatives immersed in glass for generations, that one would have a mighty head start in becoming a famous glass artist. But in many ways, these connections make the goal of establishing an original voice as a glassblower a hefty challenge indeed. The artist in question would have big shoes to fill.

Davide Salvadore strives for perfection in his work, surpassing the simple notion of glassblowing as a job and entering into the realm of passion, artistry and service to the material. His incarnations reveal his unique perspective on the world, alive with memories of the past, reactions to the present and hope for the future. This original voice attracted the attention of Bill Traver, Traver Gallery, Seattle, who was instrumental in supporting and exhibiting the Italian artist's work.

"I have a great deal of respect for the artists of Murano, and for Davide Salvadore's heritage as part of a distinguished lineage of Venetian glassworkers," said Traver. "Davide is a truly amazing individual; he was raised amidst centuries-old traditions, yet is extremely forward thinking in his own work and his ideas about how glass can be used as a sculptural medium. His adaptation of techniques, as well as equipment, to create one-of-a-kind sculptural work unlike anything else made on the island is inspiring. His efforts, throughout the years, to cultivate and promote the appreciation of glass art on Murano and to share his passion for glass with future generations through his teaching are equally inspirational. In my opinion, it is exactly this kind of inventiveness, openness and enthusiasm that will help Murano maintain its position as the heart of the international glass community."

Dating back to the 1700s, Salvadore is the 11th generation on his mother's side, credited with creating glass pieces. The first of this lineage were the Rosetto brothers whose works dated to 1721 for a Piedmontese princess.

At a young age, Salvadore began following his grandfather, Antonio Mantoan, into the furnaces of Murano, first learning how to build the kilns and later working in the studios of Alfredo Barbini, who is often recognized as the ultimate glassmaker of Murano. Later, he worked as a glassblower in multiple well-known glass studios, learning from each and improving his abilities. In 1978 he began producing lampworked beads in his mother Anna Mantoan's jewelry studio, which she sold to Yves St. Laurent and other couture houses as well as to African merchants.

With his mother's encouragement, Salvadore developed his own personal style of making lampworked beads, and these beads are still featured as part of his sculptural pieces today; a tribute to his mother's talent and support. In 1987, he opened his own studio, Campagnol & Salvadore, where he continued doing lampwork and further developed his glassblowing expertise and talent.

In 1998, Salvadore made a conscious decision to turn away from traditional functional glass work. At approximately the same time, he began demonstrating his unique murrine technique at Corning Museum of Glass, Pilchuck Glass School, Pratt Fine Art Center, and others in the United States. It was then that he was introduced to the American Studio Glass movement, which Salvadore embraced. As a result of his ingenuity and the inventiveness of his creations, the artist's glass design became instantly noteworthy.

In 2012, Salvadore founded his own studio, Salvadore SRL, where he continues to work today with his two sons, Marco and Mattia in Murano. Davide is a founding member of Centro Studio Vetro, a Muranese nonprofit association that aims to promote the culture and art of glass. After demoing at GAS Corning last week, Salvadore taught Mastering Muranese Magic at the Corning Museum of Glass, from June 8 – 14.

Currently, Salvadore creates passionately expressive one-of-a-kind sculptures that push the boundaries of centuries-old traditions. He combines traditional Italian techniques and elements in innovative ways in his work, which reflects diverse influences such as African tribal imagery, Muranese roads, and the smokestacks of glasshouses.

Joey Kirkpatrick and Flora C. Mace consistently invite us to enter a meditative state. Whatever the medium, each piece seems to raise more questions than provide answers. The artists, respected for their innovative work, have concluded the series for which they are most known, large-scale blown glass fruit and vegetable forms. Their subsequent work includes life-size figurative wood and glass sculptures as well as outdoor bronze installations and glass work that features blown vessels and cast panels with illustrations of the 'first facts' of bird identification realized through applied glass powder drawings. Most recently, the artists have been working on their Botanicals, a body of work that preserves real flowers in composite and glass.

Kirkpatrick and Mace have worked collaboratively for the past 47 years after meeting at the Pilchuck Glass School in 1979. The artists have consistently explored seminal themes: principles of drawing as incorporated into glass, the metaphoric content of human relationship to nature and the appropriation of materials to support a visual idea. They recently installed a large public art project at the Seattle Center in Seattle, Washington.

Kirkpatrick (born in Des Moines, Iowa, 1952) and Mace (born in Exeter, New Hampshire, 1949) have exhibited, lectured and taught extensively throughout the world. They taught for 12 years at Pilchuck Glass School. Their collaborative work is included in collections and museums around the world including the Corning Museum of Glass, NY; The Detroit Institute of Art Detroit, MI; The Boston Museum of Fine Art, Boston, MA; Hokkaido Museum, Japan; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York NY; Musee des Arts Decoratifs, Lausanne, Switzerland; Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, WA; Toledo Art Museum, Toledo, OH and The National Museum of American Art, Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.

Mark Doty, wrote in the introduction of the book, Joey Kirkpatrick and Flora C Mace: "This might be the most complex yoking of all, the way that two sensibilities overlap, merge, separate, conflict and resolve. A continuing dynamic, itself both unstable and solid, evolving, transforming materials and processes as it transforms itself."

Kirkpatrick and Mace were recognized in 2019 for their outstanding achievement in the field of contemporary glass art by the Art Alliance for Contemporary Glass, and have been elected to the American Craft Fellows in 2005, interviewed for the Smithsonian Archives of American Art in 2006 and given the 2001 Chateau Ste. Michelle Libensky Award by Pilchuck Glass School honoring outstanding contemporary artists working in glass. Kirkpatrick served as a trustee on the board of Pilchuck Glass School for 16 years. Now, the artists split their time between a home and studio in Seattle, Washington, and a farm on the Olympic Peninsula near the Washington Coast. Their current Botanical sculptures grew out of a desire to capture the essence of a plant by preserving it through portraiture. Each plant is harvested as it shares its bloom, brought into the studio, deconstructed, dried and reassembled. The specimen is then suspended within layers of composites and glass. The finished work has been recreated through the artist's hand and dependent on the artist's view of the specimen by observing in life, the plant's structure, the result, a portrait of a flower.

Of their Botanical sculpture, Daniel J. Hinkley, plantsman wrote: "The works of Joey Kirkpatrick and Flora C. Mace capture the improbable if not the impossible, the apprehension of not just a moment reflecting the magic and majesty of our natural world but the abduction and amplification of a precise moment of perfection. To say that the paragon of their subjects has been frozen in time implies incorrectly that what you observe in their work is not simply an expiration and preservation of a plant at its floral zenith. These flowers embody the mystery and beauty, comprehended and embraced by the artists, to such a degree that one might actually perceive its ultimate drop of petal, abscission of leaf or growth of root."

A selection of Kirkpatrick and Mace works is also on view now at the Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, New York, in Tough Stuff: Women in the American Glass Studio. The exhibition showcases the groundbreaking creators who shaped the past and future of glass art.