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Artist Statement
I communicate best through art.. . . When melting glass, I feel one with water, flowers,
ice, wind.. . In a sense "Dream River" captures important influences from my childhood
until now.. . Popsickle colors- purlpes, reds, greens, oranges and pinks are a reflection of
summers wandering in my mothers garden on a lake in southwest Michigan. These things
I have melted together into a "Dream River".
Artist Bio
When I was a child, I was a collector. I collected, among other things, electric insulators: old bottles, beads, and the usual small glass creatures. It was the quality of transparency that fascinated me and drew me to glass. I couldn't know then that I would work with glass and an art medium when I was an adult.
Although I tried every art medium possible while I was a student, I felt I was still without direction. Then, at age 19 I decided to seek out an apprenticeship in glass blowing. I was unable to find such an opportunity. But, I did visit the Bullseye Glass Company in its infant stages, Uroboros, several glassblowing studios, and the Pilchuck Glass School. In search of glass training I took a glass course at Mount Hood community
college in Portland, Oregon with Howard Ben Tre, now a world-renowned glass sculptor. My education was just beginning.
When I entered the Rhode Island School of Design to study Glass and art, I met 14 Michael Glancy. In 1982 Glancy took me as his first student of electroforming copper onto glass. After college I received a Fulbright Fellowship to study in Sweden with internationally renowned glass artist Ann Wolf where I was exposed to the deep traditions of Swedish glass and worked with master craftsmen, Jan Erik Ritzman and others. Upon returning to the USA I entered graduate studies at the Ohio State University and began teaching myself to how to cast glass.
There are many influences in my life.. . my mother's home and yard provides the canvas for her artistic expression. A master gardener, she collects vases for flower arranging and art. Also we collected rocks, and I spent many hours grinding and polishing stones with my father, an opthalmologist. I am still grinding and polishing, but
now it is glass.
Inspiration for my art often comes from nature and especially water. I grew up on a beautiful lake in Michigan. The water sparkles; it reflects the sky, booms when it freezes, breaks into a thousand splinters in the spring while sounding like strange chimes. Glass is like water. "Dream River" is my most recent work that connects to the water theme.
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