Art Glass Artist Sam Stark Biography

ARTIST STATEMENT
SAM STARK

I first saw molten glass as a boy, and the idea of making it consumed me. For the next thirty years, I immersed myself in the techniques necessary to work with such an old and complex material. I have recently developed a new approach for the creation of colors in my work. By blending primary colors in over lapping layers of clear glass, I am using color as a painter, creating unique hues and tones. This has become a major focus in my new work. Something magical happens when the glass traps the light between the layers. The pieces become luminescent almost to the point of looking wet. Light, color, transparency and opacity have always intrigued me. Pursuing color theory and the physics of light has inspired my new pieces that work in harmony with color. As the light passes completely through a piece of glass it encounters only two optical boundaries, the first on entering, and the second on leaving. The light then shines into the human eye, whose cones send messages to the brain, perceiving color. In the piece light bounces continuously between the layers, reflecting the energy of the colors, whose dimensions and directionality delineate areas in their own way. When a variety of different colors harmonize, the unity process balances images, and the colors’ visual synergy determines the final form of the piece. This combination of movement, light, and color creates a dramatic form, captured by the glass. This is my art.

 

COMMISSIONS
 

• Asheville Film Festival, North Carolina, the "AFI" Award

• 21 Battery Park, Asheville, NC, Galapagos Installation. Completion Date February  2005

• International Ski Film Festival, Crested Butte, Colorado

• For Michelin Tire Corporation the "Michelin Man" in solid crystal

• Commerce Union Bank, Nashville, TN

• Numerous private commissions have been created over the last thirty years
   

EDUCATION

• Penland School of Crafts. Assistant to Willy Anderson, Swedish Master

• Haystack Mountain School of Crafts. Lino Tagliapietra, Italian glass technique.
   
• 1989 Dale Chihuly- guest assistant to Chihuly, working with Martin Blank, Seattle
   
• 1989 Loredano Rosin, Italian solid master, second assistant during G.A.S. Conference in Toronto, Canada
   
• 1987 Penland School of Crafts. Spring concentration, special assistant to Finn
  Lynngaurd and Chi Munch
   
• 1979-1981 College of Idaho, with Michael Taylor. Helped open Glass Program and build Studio. Enrolled triple major in Art, Psychology and Philosophy.
   
• 1973-1978 Peabody College for Teachers, Nashville, TN under Michael Taylor.
  Built glass Studio and helped develop Glass Program. Sculpture and Art Metals with Michael Sanford.
   
• 1972-1976 Naples Mills School of Arts and Crafts, Naples, NY. Summer program, 1972 & 1973 student of Michael Taylor, Kim Newcomb, Marvin Lipovsky, Tom Kekic, Larry Livosi, James Nadel. 1976 teaching assistant to Carl Schantz, Michael Taylor, Leon Applebaum, Marvin Lipovsky.
   
• 1972 Haystack-Hinckley School of Crafts, Hinckley, ME under the direction of Erling Heisted, Head of Dartmouth Art Department. The Haystack Mountain School of Crafts was integrated with Hinckley School, a prep-school, affording high school Students the opportunity to study crafts with professional artists. Summer student First blew glass in Michael Taylor’s Introduction to Glass Blowing.
   
• 1971-1972 Hinckley School, Hinckley, ME. Studied ceramics with Erling Heisted, Metals with Richard Benson
   

Sam and his wife Oksana and their two children live in Asheville, North Carolina.