2005-2010 Appalachian Center for Craft/Tennessee Technical University Bachelor of Fine Arts in Glass
2010 Windgate Fellowship Award
2009 Niche Student Award Glass: Sculptural
2008 Bacchanal Festival of the Arts Scholarship
2008 Windgate Scholarship
2013 “Taking Shape" SOFA Chicago
2012 “Craft Forms” Wayne Art Center, Wayne, Pa
2012 “Mix Messages" Pyro Gallery, Louisville, Ky
2011 “While the Gatos Away” Liquid Light Gallery, Santa Fe, New Mexico
2010 “Glass at IUS” Indiana University Southeast
2009 “Craft Forms” Wayne Art Center, Wayne, Pa
2009 “Pensacola Museum of Art Juried Members Show” Pensacola, FL
2009 “Emerging Glass Artists Exhibition” Glassworks, Louisville, KY
2009 “Art From Ashes” Knoxville Museum of Art
2008 “Pilchuck Glass School Annual Juried Auction” Westin Hotel, Seattle, WA
2007 “Through the Looking Glass” Water Street Gallery, Douglas, MI
2011—Present Richard Jolley – Knoxville, TN Artist Assistant
2011 New Mexico Experimental Glass Workshop – Santa Fe, NM Hot and Cold Glass Facilitator
2011 Lucy Lyon – Santa Fe, NM Cold Worker
2011 Richie Mole – Santa Fe, NM Cold Worker
2010 Paul Marioni – Seattle, WA Artist Assistant
2010 Blaker-Desomma Glass – Santa Cruz, CA Hot Assistant Cold Worker
2009 Pilchuck Glass School – Stanwood, WA Cold Shop Technician
2008 Illinois State University – Normal, IL Visiting Artist
2008 Teaching Assistant to Michael Hernandez Mold Making and Kiln Casting
2008 Pilchuck Glass School – Stanwood, WA Cold Shop Technician
2007 Teaching Assistant to Brent Cole Advanced Slumping and Fusing
2006 Appalachian Center for Craft Teaching Assistant to Brent Cole Slumping and Fusing
2006- 2009 Mathew Cummings Glass – Louisville, KY Hot Shop Assistant Cold Worker
2005- 2010 CB Glass – Smithville, TN Hot Shop Assistant to Curtiss Brock Lead Cold Worker
2000-2005 Hobbs Glassworks – Pensacola, FL Hot Shop Assistant to Joseph Hobbs
2000-2005 Belmont Arts Center – Pensacola, FL Instructor Beginning Glassblowing Glassblowing Demonstrator Assistant Hot Shop Technician
Albuquerque Journal North (June 2012) - Form Over Function by Kate McGraw BletheringCrafts.blogspot.com Interview 2011
Much of my early inspiration for sculpture was informed by my childhood, being raised by back-to-the-land hippies. Though we eventually had to move to a city, my early memories of those wild, idyllic years have always been fresh in my mind and lead to my attempts at an Edenic return to these elements through working with the lava-like raw materials of molten glass.
However, moving to a city also influenced my creative ideas. The graffiti and other street arts I was seeing regularly as an adolescent made me see the natural urge to create, still present in urban and suburban human beings. Graffiti artist seemed concerned with exploring the space that existed between what they create and the audience's interpretation of their creation, something that would come to inform my work.
As an artist, I view my role to not only challenge the perspective of the viewer in my creations themselves, but also challenge it by combining two seemingly disparate elements (natural raw materials and urban style) to see similarities in both. The viewer has brought an entire amalgam of their own unique moments up to the point of viewing the piece and by using form in a non-representational, non-abstract way, I am asking the viewer to make his or her own identifying assignments. Instead of laying out elemental symbols for a viewer to breadcrumb back to the beginning, I am seeking to ask questions from the very elements themselves.
My method for doing this is by using a constructive technique with glass whereby I blend architectural references and the form of graffiti you may find on those same buildings to evoke the sense of humanity both display.