We talked to glassblower Entity Glass about her career and the path that led her to become such an amazing glass artist. Entity Glass has an art school background with a diverse skill set and wide range of interests. She started as a Photography major but moved into Animation and Virtual Reality Development. These fields demanded an intense amount of practice in perspective, balance, color theory, and figure drawing while also requiring the technological expertise to apply these skills in virtual three dimensional spaces. In these studies and her interest and photography she soon found a burgeoning interest in optics and lenses, and it was this interest that drove her to learn about glassblowing and try her hand at the craft.
Entity Glass said that she was always fascinated by fire, and growing up she used to love throwing glass bottles into campfires, usually poking them with a stick afterwards to see how the lump of molten glass would respond. Glassblowing fed into this lifelong attraction and curiosity, and Entity Glass was quickly hooked on glassblowing as a medium for artistic expression. After graduating she moved to Richmond, Virginia and enrolled in the glass program at Virginia Commonwealth University. Around this time she studied under a soft glass blower named Brad Pearson where she got most of her early torch experience, and as she learned more about borosilicate glass she began studying under artist Jack Alden who taught her sculptural borosilicate glass techniques.
During this learning period Entity Glass did a lot of production work, mostly making small pipes. She feels fortunate to have had access to amazing blowers who weren't afraid to tell her when her work wasn't good enough, as this pushed her to continually improve and make her glass as cleanly as possible. Entity Glass' background in art production gave her a solid foundation that she could apply to her work as a glassblower; she regularly had to spend eight hours a day doing figure drawing, over and over, and that discipline has helped her tremendously in her glassblowing career. Entity Glass often picks up new techniques from other blowers that she meets, and she also takes formal classes when she is able.
Entity Glass' work ethic is reflected in her pieces, which are simply gorgeous. Her Rainbow Doodle tech is a signature style that utilizes multiple pastel shades in cloud-like swirls, and her color pallets of choice range from pastel shades to dark gothic tones and everything in between. Entity Glass' character pieces cover a wide variety of subjects from dragons, Lovecraftian entities, aliens, erotica, food items, animals, and abstracts. Recently she has been producing some miniature items; she started making miniature pipes after challenging herself to see just how small she could make a spoon pipe that was fully functional, and recently she started making realistic glass gummy bears that she is hoping to shrink down to be used as terp pearls.
Entity Glass loves to experiment and try to push the glass to its limits, and herself as well. She never declines when a friend asks her to make something that she has never made before, and Entity Glass keeps a sketchbook where she will work these ideas out on paper. In each piece Entity Glass typically tries to convey a certain idea or emotion, and the sketchbook helps her to draft these concepts before committing them to glass. In the future Entity Glass plans to continue learning and expanding her knowledge of glass, and soon she intends to go back to the basic fundamentals to learn the techniques that she avoided when she was still a beginner. Entity Glass will also likely be attending Salem Community College soon to join their scientific glassblowing program, which is a prestigious program that is sure to elevate her skills to the next level. You can check out her amazing work over on her Instragram page. (@entity.glass)
