I began exploring glass in 2022, after more than three decades working primarily with wood as a furniture designer and maker. Seeking a new creative challenge, I enrolled in a workshop at the Penland School of Craft in North Carolina, where I was introduced to the expressive possibilities of glass. Although new to hot glass at the time, I had previously worked with kiln-formed glass while serving as Head of the Furniture Department at the now-defunct Oregon College of Art and Craft. Through a collaboration with artists at Bullseye Glass, I incorporated a cast glass top into a desk that I designed and built—my first meaningful intersection of glass and furniture.

After earning my MFA from San Diego State University, I went on to establish a successful career as a furniture artist. My work is held in private collections and museums, including the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum. This introduction to working with glass at Penland ignited an immediate and profound connection to glass. I returned home eager to continue learning, enrolling in glassblowing classes at KT Glassworks in Los Angeles and later committing to a six-week fall concentration at Penland to fully immerse myself in working with molten glass. This experience only deepened my passion, leading me back to Penland the following summer for an intensive two-week session focused on glass casting.

From early childhood, I have been captivated by cartoons and animation—their bold color, exaggerated forms, and fantastical worlds where the impossible feels inevitable. I am drawn to the freedom cartoonists embrace, where characters defy gravity, logic, and restraint. This visual language continues to transport me back to the wonder and imagination of childhood.

Working with molten and cast glass allows me to fully engage with these influences. The material’s fluidity and luminosity provide a means to explore color, asymmetry, lavishness, and implied movement. After more than thirty years as a furniture maker, I am energized by glass’s capacity to carry animated spirit, free association, and surreal vitality. Through this medium, I am able to push beyond functional constraints and embrace the bizarre, the fantastical, and the joy of visual play.