Glass has something the others don't. It has optics. Depth. Refraction. Transparency. Saturated color. Physical presence. And an extraordinary relationship with changing light. It is simultaneously ancient and technologically sophisticated: a liquid solid born of sand and fire, transformed again through heat. That contradiction fascinates me.
Glass became my medium of choice—my obsession, really—only after more than twenty-five years of working and academic inquiry across architectural design, sculpture, painting and the emergence of digital art. I discovered kiln-formed glass in 2017 and haven't looked back.
After glass, opaque painting can feel strangely flat. Static sculpture can feel less alive. Even digital art—once the newest medium in my practice—can suddenly seem ancient.
The Work
My work moves between abstraction, the figure and the natural world. Pieces may be intimate enough to hold in your hands or conceived architecturally at the scale of a wall, landscape or poolside environment.
I am particularly interested in what happens when artwork becomes part of a beautifully considered space. Sometimes art should command the room. Sometimes it should behave like an exceptional supporting actor—strengthening the architecture, light, landscape and objects around it without competing with them. Knowing the difference is part of the work.
My perspective has been shaped between Toronto and California and by a career that has crossed fine art, design, construction and technology. I bring a refined palette, a designer's understanding of space, an artist's imagination, a craftsperson's attention to execution and an innovator's appetite for experimentation. All of it is ultimately in service to something very simple: the human love of beauty.
Pedestrian Spaces make me Restless (my pov)
I am an artist driven by unusually high standards of design and an almost unreasonable sensitivity to color. I think about the relationship between object and environment: proportion, sightline, color, material, light and emotion.
I am equally interested in the artwork that takes center stage and the quieter piece that makes an entire room suddenly feel resolved. My work is made for environments—and people—where those distinctions matter.
Background
I earned an MFA in Digital Arts & New Media from the University of California, Santa Cruz, where I received a Regents Scholarship, and a BFA with an emphasis in sculpture, painting and printmaking from California State University, Stanislaus.
My professional life has crossed fine art, education, technology, architectural and luxury kitchen and bath design, construction and business development.
Since 2021 I continue to study kiln-formed glass with internationally recognized glass artist Narcissus Quagliata and, subsequently, with his son Orfeo Quagliata. That education opened an extraordinary territory. Contemporary kiln-formed glass remains a comparatively young discipline. Modern temperature controls and compatible glass systems dramatically expanded what artists could reliably accomplish in the kiln during the late twentieth century. Yet compared with painting, ceramics or traditional glassworking, the field still offers enormous room for experimentation. That is precisely what attracts me to it.
Glass is technically demanding, expensive, occasionally infuriating and capable of astonishing beauty. Transparency adds another dimension entirely: the artwork changes with illumination, viewpoint, environment and time of day. I have yet to encounter another material with the same combination of permanence, color, optical depth and personality.
Teaching & Color
Teaching has always existed alongside my studio practice. I taught Color & Design at the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising (FIDM) in San Francisco, User Experience at the Art Institute in Sacramento, and web design and scenic painting at colleges in Southern California. My academic teaching has also included theater design and two- and three-dimensional art.
Today I teach Color & Design for glass artists through Shangri-La Art Glass to an international community of experienced glass artist. In 2022 I created a online space where my fellow glass art students would meet weekly to collaborate and grow. We are still growing strong today - each and every week.. Teaching color continually feeds the studio - in body, mind and spirit.