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Welcome to
Y O U N T V I L L E
Top: Artist Jack Storms 'in
studio' completing Bella Vino
Middle: Bella Vino & Bella Duo
Right: Cube
Meet Jack Storms
at RASgalleries
on July 13 & 14.
RASGALLERIES ART GLASS
Open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily, Tuesdays by appointment.
6540 Washington Street, Yountville, Napa Valley (next to Bouchon)
(707) 944-9211 | www.rasgalleries.com.
JACK STORMS
Master of Cold Glass Sculpture
Meet the Artist at RASgalleries
BY RONDA SCHAER
As the owner of RASgalleries, I’ve had the opportunity to meet hundreds
of talented American glass artists over the past twenty-two years. I’m
fascinated by the work of Jack Storms, one of only three cold glass sculptors
in the world. It’s a pleasure to announce that RASgalleries will host Jack
Storms: Master of Cold Glass Sculpture beginning July 13 and continuing
through August 31. In this show, we’ll present Bella Vino, exclusive winethemed
sculptures as well as pieces from his “Cube & Ariel Series.” The show
begins Friday, July 13, with an artist reception from 6 to 8 p.m., and there’s a
second chance to meet Jack Storms on Saturday, July 14 from 2 to 4 p.m.
I recently had the chance to chat with him about his life and work and his
plans for the RASgalleries show.
RASgalleries: Your sculptures radiate and mesmerize. Our clients can’t take their eyes
off them! The spectrum of color makes everyone want to touch the surface of the
crystal. Talk about the first time you touched glass. What drew you to this medium?
Jack Storms: That was a seminal moment for me and it was just that quick.
Sculpting glass is a slow, tedious process but that first day when I stood at the
grinding wheel manipulating the glass and saw what I could do, I was
immediately hooked by both the process and the form. That first day, with the
simple and tedious task of grinding a piece of glass flat and then smooth and
then to a polish, I knew what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. It was
magic to me to transform a piece of glass that looked like a chunk of concrete
into a treasure that shone like a diamond.
RASgalleries: You opened your studio in 2004 and you’re one of very few optic crystal
sculptors in the world. You’ve said that it can take ten weeks or more to complete a
piece. I understand the process is demanding, requiring painstaking construction of a
core of dichroic film on glass. Each piece is cut, polished and laminated, layer after
layer to achieve the geometric rainbows. Your studio must be an interesting place,
describe it and the preparations you must make prior to beginning a new piece, and
explain the steps you take to ensure success. What can go wrong?
Jack Storms: It can all go wrong. That’s one of the main reasons the process
takes the time that it does. There’s a lot of room for error and it’s a constant
struggle to maintain a polished surface that’s vital for the interior construction
of the work and the finish. The studio looks like a dungeon since most of the
tooling is wet and I use diamond tools and grit (basically the texture of beach
sand). It’s a constant struggle to not cross contaminate. The process is slow
enough without making a mistake like mixing up a polishing compound with
grit. I bond the glass in a clean room that must be dust free. Again, I have to
be constantly aware of contamination since no one wants my eyelashes in
their artwork.
RASgalleries: You draw inspiration from both your heart and science, using the
theory of Fibonacci in each lead crystal sculpture. Fibonacci, as a great
mathematician, articulated that math is natural in nature. Fibonacci numbers are
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