Vessels and Castings

For me, the 70's was about blowing vessels and trying to master the art of glass casting. The blown work ran the gamut from organic expressionistic forms to formal decorated surfaces. The major influence on my work at that time was the German artist Erwin Eisch. I first came across Erwin's work while working with Prof. Littleton at the U. of Wisconsin. Erwin's work had an expressionistic quality that I found most appealing and, in my own way, I attempted to emulate the style through my own interpretation.
I did not, at the time, find the transparency of glass appealing. Most of my work was blown from milk glass and a black glass. The castings were an extension of the work I had been doing in clay.
During the late 60's, I had made sculptures in clay that were very political in nature and expressed my feelings about the war in Viet Nam.
In May of 1970, the Ohio National Guard shot and killed four students during anti-war demonstrations at Kent State University, the campus where I was teaching. I was present on the KSU commons that fateful day and heard the shots as they were fired. The glass casting series originally grew from my personal feelings and eventually progressed into other areas of my artistic expression.
Most, if not all my castings, were metaphorical in nature. It should be noted that, to my knowledge, there was no one doing any glass casting at the time that I began these sculptures and I had to develop the process on my own. The technology that I developed in order to realize the castings grew from my knowledge of constructing molds for bronze casting. In the mid 80's I became very aware of the castings being produced by Stanislav Libensky and Jaroslava Brychtova and was honored to work with them at Pilchuck and later in their studio in the Czech Republic.
Some of these works are still in my possession and are for sale. If you’re interested go to my contact page and send an email.