Anna Boothe and Nancy Cohen
Grant Garmezy
Grant Garmezy: Elevating Sculpted Glass to Narrative Work
With a passion for hot sculpting animals in glass, Grant Garmezy perfected his ability to capture not only form, but expression and movement, elevating each piece from just sculpture into a narrative work of art. From his Dragon Ranch in Richmond, Virginia, the artist continues to draw inspiration from the environment of the American South.
Says Garmezy: “Nature is truly perfect in its creation—impossible to reproduce. I do not strive to recreate the natural world exactly; instead, I try to capture the essence of the animal I am sculpting, not only in its physical features, but also its attitude and spirit.”
Garmezy’s work is created through the process of off-hand sculpting, meaning he sculpts the glass freehand while it is heated to about 2,000 degrees. Using an extremely hot torch and a variety of hand tools, the glass is manipulated without the use of molds. For that reason, each and every piece is truly unique. The artist works with at least one assistant, but most of the work requires the help of an entire team of skilled artists.
Born on a farm outside Nashville, Tennessee, Garmezy began his artistic career as an apprentice to metal and jewelry fabricator, Ben Caldwell. In 2003, he traveled to Richmond, Virginia, to pursue a Bachelor’s Degree in Fine Arts at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU). While in the Craft/Material Studies program, he studied under Jack Wax, a furnace worker, and flameworker, Emilio Santini. Garmezy received the 10 Under 10 award from his alma mater, honoring 10 noteworthy and distinctive alumni of VCU who graduated in the past decade.
In 2008, Garmezy was awarded the International North Lands Creative Glass Residency in Scotland. While there, he was presented with the Benno Schotz Award through The Royal Scottish Academy for most promising young sculptor in the UK. In 2010, the artist served as teaching assistant for Karen Willenbrink and Jasen Johnsen at Pilchuck Glass School and the following year was awarded a position as an assistant at the new Chrysler Museum of Art Perry Glass Studio. During his time in Norfolk, he helped to break in the new studio and had a hand in shaping it into what it is today.
In July 2013, Garmezy was invited back to Norfolk as the featured artist for a Third Thursday performance at the Perry Glass Studio. At the conclusion of the evening, Grant surprised now wife Erin—and the entire audience—by taking a knee and proposing marriage to her. The special moment was very fitting to their relationship and is fondly remembered by all who were there to witness it. The husband-and-wife team returned to the Perry Glass Studio in September 2020 for the Visiting Artist Series, where they focused on a new series of works featuring reptiles and snakes coupled with sculpted flowers.
The pastoral environment of Garmezy’s youth— specifically interactions with livestock, wildlife, and natural settings—manifests in collaborative sculptures with Erin, which are typically pairings of flora and fauna. Erin moved from blowing glass vessels at the furnace to sculpting glass plant life on a torch when she studied with VCU professor Santini, and later Robert Mickelsen and David Willis.
Having traveled as far as the Northlands of Scotland, and Seoul, South Korea, to demonstrate his craft, Garmezy has studied with Scott Darlington, Ross Richmond, Martin Janecky, Raven Skyriver, Marc Petrovic, Karen Willenbrink-Johnsen and Jasen Johnsen. He has been invited to exhibit his work all over the world, including Seoul, Edinburgh, Prague, Paris, and Istanbul. Upcoming 2022 workshops will take place at the Toledo Museum of Art, May 9 – 13
https://www.toledomuseum.org/master-class
and at the Glass Furnace in Istanbul, May 30 – June 9
In 2020, Garmezy embarked on the most ambitious project of his career – hot sculpting 200 glass dragons for Kugler color company in Germany. Kugler hand-crafts a wide range of colored glass based on recipes passed on for generations. Garmezy and Kugler worked together with Hot Glass Color Supply to design a new color reference chart. A glass color chart is a reference that shows examples of what each glass color looks like. It is a resource for glass artists to help them choose the correct colors for their projects. As a sculptor, Garmezy always wished for a resource that showed more than one way the color can be used. The goal was to create a chart that demonstrated the bar color encased and blown, as well as powder color applied to the surface of the glass and sculpted.
Says Garmezy: “I created one dragon sculpture for each of the colors on the poster. It was important that each dragon head was a similar size and style, but each completely unique. This color chart will give both blowers and sculptors a good idea of the potential of each color. We chose the image of the dragon because dragon imagery can be found in cultures around the world, and its symbolism brings to mind good luck, fortune, wisdom and strength – things we wish for all glass artists out there.”
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Paul Messink
Paul Messink’s Ethereal Kilnformed Panels
Paul Messink’s multilayered kilnformed glass panels draw the viewer into an ethereal and ghostly landscape that represents the uncertainty of life and its myriad directions. Transforming a painting, an historically two-dimensional art form, into a three-dimensional scene with depth and perspective, Messink poses questions about choices and pathways via scenes obscured and enhanced by the mystery of fog and mist.
Frequently asked if a photograph has been embedded in his layers of glass, Messink actually creates his imagery by applying glass enamels and fusing. The artist creates depth by layering the glass, diminishing the size and color of his subject matter, and manipulating texture and translucence. Messink typically uses between nine and 12 layers of glass that are kilncast into one solid panel.
Formerly an IT project manager in Chicago, Messink is currently based out of Palm Desert, California, with studios in both Palm Desert and the nearby Coachella Valley Art Center in Indio, California. While mostly self-taught, workshops of artists such as Susan Taylor Glasgow, Richard LaLonde, Mark Salsbury, Annette Baron, and Don Schneider helped him refine and advance his technique. Messink now teaches his process around the country to other artists and kilnworkers looking for more expressive approaches in glass.
Messink was awarded “Best in Glass” in the 2012 and 2014 Royal Oak Clay, Glass and Metal show, Royal Oak, Michigan, and was awarded “Multi-Media Artist of the Year” in the Art Comes Alive 2013 competition, Cincinnati, Ohio. In 2014 he received a category award in The Glass Prize 2014, sponsored by Warm Glass UK, and was also awarded “Best in Show” at GATHERING: Contemporary Glass from the Heartland, sponsored by the Indiana Glass Art Alliance. In 2015 he took home the “People’s Choice Award in Glass” at the 3rd Brea Clay and Glass Exhibit, in Brea CA. Messink has participated in numerous group shows around the country.
Preston Singletary
Preston Singletary: Contemporary Indigenous Glass Art
At 19, Preston Singletary was the night watchman at Rob Adamson’s Glass Eye studio in Seattle. Three months later he started blowing glass, working with his childhood friend Dante Marioni. Both artists credit a visit from Italian Maestro Lino Tagliapietra as well as Pilchuck classes with inspiring their subsequent successful careers in glass.
In the 1980s, Singletary began incorporating Tlingit designs into his work. By doing so he found not only a new artistic direction but a captive audience for glass that reflected the stories and symbols of his Native Southeast Alaskan tribe. Singletary transformed the notion that Native artists work best with traditional materials. The evolution of his glass working skills and designs along with his subsequent commercial success has positioned Singletary as a primary influence on contemporary indigenous art.
Wrote Matthew Kangas for Visual Art Source: “Making indigenous art releases the ego tied up with individual artistic expression in favor of a wider, collective surge and cross-cultural impact. Combining private and public commissions as well as mainstream gallery commitments, Singletary’s new work is advancing both glass and contemporary Native American art. He is perhaps now the leading artist doing so.”
Singletary’s astounding commissions include his glass Clan Housescreen and house posts at the Walter Soboleff Center in Juneau, Alaska. The screen depicts a Northwest Coast design in sandblasted glass. On the left stands an Eagle warrior; on the right stands a Raven. This screen measures approximately 11.5 feet high by 16 feet wide and weighs over 1000 lbs. It is comprised of 28 glass panels, 28 Plexiglas panels, and over 200 custom made mounting bolts.
More than five years in the making, Singletary’s Family Story Totemsinclude three 7-foot tall 3-dimensional glass totem poles depicting a beloved family story about the artist’s great-grandmother. A collaboration with longtime friend and woodcarver David Svenson, the Family Story Totemsare three of the largest cast glass sculptures in the world. From designing, to carving, to casting first in plaster, then bronze, then lead crystal – this project broke boundaries in art glass production. No other artist has attempted glass casting on this scale with this detail.
In terms of his gallery work, Singletary will exhibit new sculpture in Premonitions of Waterat the Traver Gallery in Seattle from April 6 – 29, 2017. Opening in 2018 at the Museum of Glass in Tacoma, Raven and the Box of Daylightis the Tlingit story of Raven and his transformation of the world—bringing light to people via the stars, moon, and sun. A dynamic combination of artwork, storytelling, and encounter, the exhibition allows the treasured Tlingit creation myth to unfold during the visitor’s experience.
When he’s not making art, Singletary sings and plays bass with his band Khu.éex’ (pronounced koo-eex). This one-of-a-kind musical collaboration included the legendary late Rock and Roll Hall of Fame composer and performer Bernie Worrell of Parliament/Funkadelic and Talking Heads. Other bandmates include Skerik collaborator with Pearl Jam, Stanton Moore of Galactic, Captain Raab of Red Earth, and tribal members Clarissa Rizal, Gene Tagaban and Nahaan. Following their debut album, “The Wilderness Within,” their second album “They Forgot They Survived” will be released on triple vinyl. We’ll hear a track, “Angry Bear,” later in the show.
Of the handful of Native Americans working in glass Singletary is a forerunner, using previously undeveloped techniques to revolutionize a new art form. The artist has unintentionally carved a place in history for himself by sharing Tlingit stories and traditions in the unexpected and technically challenging medium of glass.
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