Christopher Sherwin

Biography

Art has always has been an important and integral part of Chris Sherwin's life.  Throughout the years he's dabbled in many different areas of art including woodturning, drawing, painting, ceramics, and music.  He took glassblowing as an elective during his senior year at Southern Connecticut State University.  He received a Bachelor of Science in Liberal Studies in 1991, with minors in Psychology and History and concentration in Special Education.  After two years of working as a residential direct care worker with individuals with Developmental Disabilities in Maryland, he returned to my home state of Vermont to begin his current ‘life path’ as a glassblower.

In the fall of 1993, Chris began apprenticing at Simon Pearce, Inc., a prestigious glass shop in Windsor, Vermont well known for their high quality production of crystal.  After a few months, he began blowing small vases and eventually worked my way to a team leader, which he held for over two years.   

In July of 1997, Chris left Vermont and moved to Chico, California. He was hired as a glass assistant at Orient & Flume Art Glass, a glass studio known internationally for their iridescent vases and paperweights, and torch work designs. He was like a kid in a candy shop. He was already skilled in the shaping and forming of glass; now he had numerous colors to experiment with and techniques to learn.  He spent the next seven years watching and learning from masters of the trade, practicing, refining and honing his skills.  He specialized in iridescent and torch work design and had many successful solo and collaboratively designed pieces on the production line as well as a successful section in the Orient & Flume retail showroom.

In the summer of 2004, Chris and his family returned home to New England and set up his own glass studio. His designs are a composite of the techniques he learned at both prestigious glass studios, and he continues to specialize in the unique art of torch work, striving to capture by hand in glass the beauty he see in Nature, especially here in New England.

Artist’s Statement

I work in the medium of glass and specialize in torch work design and application. Using hand-pulled canes of glass made specifically for each design, and a hand-held oxy-propane torch, I melt and shape the tips of the glass canes and apply them to the glass form being created, to achieve the desired design.  It is best described as ‘painting with glass’.  After the decoration is complete, all of my work is hand shaped with wet newspaper.  I like to get as close to the glass as possible and using newspaper allows me to feel how the glass is moving with my hand.  Some of the pieces are formed into paperweights, others blown into various vessels.  When designing a piece, I try to allow the decoration or floral pattern dictate the form of the piece so as to provide harmony between the two.  The pieces vary in length from fifteen minutes to almost three hours.  The torch work process is intensive; all of my work is done ‘on the pipe’ and once a piece is started it demands concentration and attention to detail and form through to the end. My goal is to bring the creative and technical aspects of torch work design and application together with the freedom and elegance of hand-shaped forms to create harmonious, high quality, collectible pieces of art glass.