What is your primary medium?
My primary medium is borosilicate glass torch work.
What got you interested in working with glass?
I took a lot of craft classes throughout junior high and I got interested in tying hemp necklaces and buying glass beads. Then I was actually fortunate enough to meet a guy that was making glass beads and when I saw him making them, I got pretty much hooked right away.
Where do you get your inspiration?
You know, a lot of that is pretty organic as far as what I create. It's been a mixture of what people have asked me to make. I definitely get inspired by making little nature work. I make a lot of aquatic life; Fish, sea turtles, octopus. And then I like the vessel work as well, like the shapes of vessels and trying to create a particular shape, classic vessel work.
How long have you been working with glass?
21, almost 22 years.
What gets you out of bed and creating?
I'm still really mesmerized by the material. It's difficult. The difficulty factor working with it, it always keeps me interested. You can always up the scale of something that you're working on or just push yourself in a different direction. Going from a wildlife sculpture or something to a nice high end set of champagne flutes or a big vase or something like that. Definitely the difficulty of the medium combined with what you can make has always really intrigued me. That always keeps you interested. Going to bed you're thinking about projects, waking up you’re thinking about what you're gonna make in the morning.
Are there opportunities you've had specific to Boise?
There's not very many other people that blow glass or do flameworking like I do. The pool is pretty small. So exposure to the medium is kind of hard to get and it's a little bit of an expensive hobby. A basic setup is still several thousand dollars and you want to be able to make sure you're doing it safely and you can cover all your bases as far as not not hurting yourself. When I first started, there wasn't even any place to get classes or anything like that. So that's one of the reasons why we do our public demos. We offer classes and stuff like that.
Has the pandemic changed the way you work?
Certainly, yeah. We normally rely on sales at art shows, one that we do here that you’ve probably heard of is Art in the Park. You know, we do a lot of similar style shows like that and a lot of those were canceled in 2020. We've had to focus more on building our website, we have an Etsy store, stuff like that. Online sales is something that we had to focus on and, you know, in this day and age, you really should anyway. It's a public market that's open all the time so we just kind of rolled with the punches.
Do you think art is a worthwhile endeavor?
Art always, it's like, when you get inspired and something makes you smile, or you think “That's really beautiful”, you know? I've always thought that beautiful machines look good, nice cars look good. My crafts teacher was obviously a big inspiration for me, he made beautiful clay pieces. And now being around other other artists here in the valley, I get exposed to it all the time.I definitely really, really appreciate beautiful artwork, like getting a good painting, you know, can inspire you to make a good sculpture or something else.
What do you primarily make with your glass?
Vessel work, bottles, cups, vases. I do quite a bit of jewelry work, pendants. I dabble in marbles and a little bit of sculpture.
How long has this been your full-time job?
About 5 years now. I've definitely gone out on a limb before and I've failed a few times at running my own business. I’ve got a really good support system now. My wife is tremendously supportive and yeah, hopefully fourth time's the charm.
Did you go to business or art school?
No, I've basically just worked a hodgepodge of jobs. I've done a little bit of everything; customer service, I did some wholesale distribution work, construction jobs. I worked in the food industry, a bank, I've worked a ton of jobs on and off through the years which has given me a lot of practical experience. But yeah, forming a business plan is definitely a big priority that a lot of artists don't think about. Making the art is half the challenge, the other half of the challenge is to sell it. We try to educate ourselves as much on social media channels as we can, trying to get an Instagram following and a Facebook following. We try to capture a lot of video content, pictures, stuff like that so we can put ourselves out on those channels. And then like I said, having a business plan. Again, my wife helps me with a ton of that stuff. She's amazing. And a big, big part of how I'm able to achieve success.
Do you have a favorite part of the process?
Man, just the entire part of it. It's mesmerizing from start to finish. There's tense moments where you're right on the edge of finishing a project and know the failure could come at any second for a number of reasons. Yeah, it's just constantly a technical challenge and for me, it's kind of a soothing process to be in motion and working with it.
What makes torch work different from furnace glass?
That traditional style is called soft glass or furnace glass and they'll start with a molten pot of glass and the whole time that they are working with it, they're cooling it down and then heating it up and cooling it down and heating it up to finish their product. I start with cold glass. And then I'll heat it up manually on the torch and use the heat, gravity, centrifugal force and some tools to manipulate the glass. The furnace glass is a little lower temperature and has a softening point of between 900º F and 1,000º F. And then the softening point of borosilicate glass, which is the type of glass I work with, is 1,510º F. The torch flame is about 4000º F.
How long does it take to cure the objects you make?
That depends on what you're making. My annealing oven here, my kiln, I'll use that for preheating an item. So if I need to work on a piece of tubing, generally I'll stick it in the oven to warm up to temperature, the oven holds at 1,050º F, which is also the annealing temperature for glass, then, depending on how thick it is, and there are some other variables, but generally it’s based on how thick it is. You'll have it on a cooldown cycle too, so it'll ramp down in temperature and cool nice and slowly. I use that thing all day, it's another tool basically. A holding at temperature tool. For all my finished product, it sits in there overnight and I'll take it out in the morning.
Do you have any advice for someone trying to go full-time with their art?
It was a big leap of faith and definitely having a good support system helps. We have great friends that support us financially by buying our product. And then really just work hard, you’ve got to treat it like a regular job. Most artists don't get rich off one project, you have to make a lot of stuff. Try and become as well rounded as you can. Take classes, any education that you can get is super important. If you were a teacher or something, there's always continuing education. All that stuff's super important to remaining successful. Just stay driven.
Do you have a favorite piece you've made?
Oh, no, I don't really get too attached to the things that I make. There's been things that I've made that I'm proud of, and I've given some stuff to my wife and kids that are special to me. I mean, I'm working on that. I want that to happen and I definitely have some ideas that I haven't achieved yet I'm looking forward to and maybe I’ll keep one of those projects.
Do you think art is something you'll ever stop doing?
No, no. I mean, this is what I envision doing for the rest of my life. If I can make a little bit of money and do what I like to do anyway, I'm a project guy, I like staying busy and making stuff and working on stuff. I mean, my mind just works that way. Again, it's like a big puzzle. I just want to put all the pieces together. That's a lifetime's work.