Cold glass sculptor Jack Storms is quite literally a cut above the rest when it comes to his quest for artistic perfection, another level of optical creativity, and the beauty that results from it.
Welcome to the spectacular world of Jack Storms glass sculpture.
Incredibly talented and skilled beyond all reason, Jack Storms was destined to be someone really amazing. Both a tremendous athlete and a motivated student growing up in New Hampshire, it wasn’t until later in life that Jack discovered his passions in contemporary art and graduated at age 30 from Plymouth State University with a BA in Art focusing primarily on studio production. It was during his junior year there that he happened upon what would eventually become an entryway to his legacy, the studio of a glass artist that was close to his school where he was producing a phenomenally rare style of glass art work combining lead crystal and dichroic glass using a cold-glass process. The process itself which required weeks and weeks to produce even one completed glass sculpture was incredibly intense and physically challenging, and the number of glass artisans working in this form of fine art could be counted on one hand. Working side by side with the artisan for over a year, Jack learned every component and facet of this incredibly challenging and rare art form and eventually was a strong enough sculptor to branch out on his own in 2004 and open Storm Works Studio.
Both challenged and inspired by having been told that his vision was impossible, one of Jack’s first major accomplishments as an independent glass artist was to invent and design a cold-working lathe that offers him the ability to turn glass and sculpt shapes with curves and details like one would produce from a wooden medium. Early memories of studying his father’s craftsmanship as he worked for hours in his own studio with a wooden lathe provided him with the blueprint of his vision, and his intense drive and deeply embedded passion as a glass artist combined with the inspiration that came from the idea of pioneering new trails in the world of fine art motivated him toward this remarkable accomplishment.
The intense cold-glass process which can take up to 10 weeks for each contemporary glass sculpture to come to life begins at the heart of the design, by creating a core of lead crystal which is cut, polished and laminated creating reflective mirrors. When wrapped in optical glass, the refraction of light as it passes through the glass creates rainbows of hypnotic color. The drawn out process of repetitive cutting, grinding and polishing requires intense passion, rigid self-discipline, and more blood sweat and tears than any artisan could wrap their mind around. The results, are mind boggling works of contemporary glass art.
Drawing inspiration from both his heart and his mind when conceiving his artistic designs, at the heart of each lead crystal sculpture by Jack Storms lays the theory of Fibonacci, a great mathematician that articulated the natural math seen in nature. Natural beauty is created, not manufactured. From the repetition florets of a flower to the scales of a pineapple’s skin, Fibonacci numbers are found in the pattern of growth of every living thing in nature.
Out of his California studio he has been commissioned to produce pieces for the Yankee’s baseball legend Derek Jeter, the president of Nigeria, and most recently he created a Spectrum Cube and Tear Drop sculptures that were part of the story and set design in the blockbuster Marvel film Guardians Of The Galaxy.
Check out the very informative video below, and for further information please head on over to his website here.