Commissions, Process & Material Experimentation
The studio is a place of creation, alchemy, vision, imagination, testing, a smattering of magic—and at least a mile of blind wandering. There is almost always something happening here.
You might find me breaking glass with a flamethrower, pulling molten glass into threads, developing a new composition, welding a base, experimenting with custom joinery, preparing for a photo shoot, testing an installation—or opening a kiln to discover whether several days of work produced exactly what I imagined or something far more interesting.
Glass may be the most technically demanding material I use, but it is only part of the art. Our projects move between fine art, design, material experimentation, fabrication and the environment in which the finished work will ultimately live. Photographs and video can document that process, but being here is how you begin to understand what is possible.
Architects, designers, gallery professionals, collectors, art consultants, hospitality clients and film and production professionals are welcome to visit by appointment.
Come see what's happening, or join our email list for announcements, new work and studio events. LinkedIn is my primary social platform—Instagram simply doesn't convey the complexity of what we're doing here.
What's in the Studio
This is very much a working studio. On site are eleven glass and ceramic kilns, an industrial sandblaster, powder-coating equipment, welding and cold-working stations, a cement mixer, fabrication tools and light tables throughout.
Our battery system provides substantial backup capacity for the studio and kilns—because losing power in the middle of a carefully programmed glass firing is considerably less romantic than it sounds.
My primary material is kiln-formed glass: predominantly 6mm fused work, along with deep casting, vitrigraph, enameling, sandblasting, bas-relief and kiln carving. But—and this is a very big but—glass rarely has to work alone. I also work with polished concret (not a typo, but a term I coined to describe a form construct in my undergrad practice), metals, resin, wood, stone and rubber. These materials become sculpture, structure, joinery, bases, mounting systems and sometimes integral parts of the artwork itself.
The studio is also home to the research, development and fabrication of Shangri-La Art Glass. So although this is my working artist's studio, there is a much larger ecosystem operating inside it. And it keeps growing.
Shangri-La Art Glass
Shangri-La Art Glass is the studio's research, education and design company. I serve as lead artist and designer. My wife and business partner, Shaundra Toy, is our Technical Director. Together we bring two very different professional histories to the work. My background crosses fine art, digital art, color and design education, architectural and luxury kitchen and bath design, construction and fabrication. Shaundra brings decades of professional experience in color science, technology and project leadership, including work with Kodak and Pantone. Her understanding of color, lighting, process and technical systems gives our studio capabilities that would be difficult to assemble through outside consultants. She's also PMP certified—which means that somewhere inside all this experimentation, somebody is making sure things actually get done.
Through Shangri-La Art Glass, we develop advanced color and design tools, teach Color & Design, conduct material research and serve an international community of fused-glass artists. The studio becomes the place where all of these disciplines collide. More importantly, our Shangri La is a concret utopia built on ideals about an artful life worth living, mastering and sharing.
What We Create Together
Shaundra and I design, create and curate distinctive indoor and outdoor art, sculptural glass and lighting. When we talk about the garden, however, we don't simply mean putting sculpture among some plants. We mean space done right.
Architecture. Art. Water. Landscape. Color. Material. Sightline. Reflection. Shadow. Artificial light. Natural light. And the experience of moving through all of it. Our own property has become our full-scale laboratory.
It allows architects, designers and clients to experience artwork under changing Southern California light and to see examples of temporary and permanent installation, landscape integration, lighting, mounting systems, scale and material relationships.
Shangri La Poolside Gallery
Approximately 60 linear feet of installed artwork surrounds the poolside gallery, including finished works and a miniature collection of prototypes, maquettes and models displayed on stone pedestals.
The gallery allows us to demonstrate something photographs struggle to communicate: how glass changes as the sun moves across it, as water reflects through it, and as daylight gives way to architectural lighting.
The entire environment was conceived as a composition. From above, the backyard and pool form an infinity symbol. We even spent a year with a membership at Glen Ivy Hot Springs studying its pools and landscaped environments while developing our own plans. Research can be difficult.
We were also the general contractors for the project, which means the space isn't simply a backdrop for the artwork. It is part of our design practice.
The Sunset Lounge & Butterfly Garden
The Sunset Lounge is more intimate: a gallery arranged around a roughly 20-foot circular garden.
This space belongs to the end of the day. At sunset, glass begins catching points of light that weren't visible an hour earlier. Dragonflies move across the water, hummingbirds disappear through banana and hibiscus, lizards scale the walls, and the garden changes by the minute.
It is cocktail hour—that brief interval before night collapses onto the day. And it is one of my favorite places to understand what transparent glass can do.
The Studio as Laboratory
Not everything here is finished. That's intentional. Visitors may see work moving through annealing studies, coating tests, bases, mounting systems, seals, fixtures, structural connections and joinery before encountering the completed piece elsewhere on the property.
For architects and designers, this can be particularly useful. Instead of choosing only from finished inventory, you can see ideas while they are still flexible enough to become something else.
- A small study might suggest a larger installation.
- A color combination might be developed specifically for an interior.
- A sculptural panel might become architectural lighting.
- An outdoor piece might respond to a pool, garden, courtyard or sightline.
And when a project requires fabrication beyond our equipment, scale or schedule, we collaborate with larger studios and specialized craftspeople rather than forcing a project to fit our limitations.
Coming Next
The property itself continues to evolve.
In 2027, we plan to complete a series of decidedly desirable pool rails incorporating brass, glass and stainless steel, along with fountains originally conceived during the 2023–2024 pool construction.
The approximately 50-foot pool, 16-by-12-foot spa and 1,800-square-foot deck connect directly with the studios and galleries, giving us an unusually large environment for experimenting with art, water, landscape and light at architectural scale. There will undoubtedly be more - there always is.
Studio & Gallery Visits
Come see what we're working on.
We welcome architects, interior and landscape designers, gallery professionals, art consultants, collectors, hospitality professionals and film, television and production teams to visit the studio and galleries by appointment.
We particularly enjoy working directly with architects and designers early in a project. Understanding the architecture, client, scope, timeline, budget and—especially with glass—the available light can dramatically expand what we are able to propose. An initial studio conversation can be followed by a client meeting here or a site visit when appropriate.
Finished work may be available for acquisition, exhibition, placement or production use. We also welcome conversations about commissions, site-specific artwork, lighting, outdoor installations and professional collaborations.
Because with glass, light creates both our greatest opportunities and our most interesting problems. And sometimes the best way to discover what is possible is simply to come over and see it.
Studio visits by appointment · Southern California
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