All photos Casey Sheafe, @salteyelens
Salt: Raising the Voice of his Generation
Known for his one-of-a-kind creature pipes, Salt began flameworking in 2001 in his hometown of Austin, Texas, where he still resides today. From spots and stripes, teeth and claws, to his trademark eyes, Salt’s detailed borosilicate sculpture has an undeniable hold on the functional glass community. His loyal 159K Instagram followers wait for new work to be released and search select shops and galleries for exotic creatures to add to their collections.
Salt Glass is inspired and informed by influences as vastly different as Surrealists such as Salvador Dalí and Maurits Cornelis Escher to elements from hip-hop culture such as graffiti and music, specifically the free-style movement. As he works, Salt let’s his imagination run wild. He endows his creatures with names and personalities, imagines how they might move, how and what they might eat. Environments they will thrive or die in are pondered.
On another level, the artist uses the creative process to examine thoughts, concerns, and dreams. As Salt works glass in the torch, he focuses on the feeling of having negative energy consumed and changed by this creature, allowing it to not only consume negativity, but transform the energy to positivity in a magical glass alchemy.
Sponsored by the company of the same name, Salt serves on Glass Alchemy’s artist board, contributing invaluable feedback to the development of new products for pipemakers and flameworkers. Independently, the artisthas pioneered a variety of revolutionary technical advances including the Gill and the Salt Perc. Says Salt: “In the end, my style is the fruit of my continually striving to put a message in my work and to amplify my voice as an artist and as a human. I want to do my best to represent the pipe making community that raised me and raise the voice of my generation.”