Talking Out Your Glass podcast

• Michael Meilahn: An Artist Farmer's Focus on Corn and GMOs

  Michael (Mick) Meilahn's body of work, which includes glass sculpture and large glass and multi-media installations, intertwines the artist's investigation into agriculture, crop production, genetic food modification, and the ancient history of corn. Primordial Shift, a quintessential example of Meilahn's later installations, consisted of 32 hand-blown glass ears of corn averaging 4-feet high, suspended on stalks of cord with leaves of cast bronze on a backdrop of video projected to create an illusion of gentle swaying in the breeze and surround-sound audio that included the chirping of birds and rustling of leaves.  Since 2022, Meilahn's Primordial Shift exhibition has been touring the U.S. with stops at Bergstrom-Mahler Museum of Glass (Neenah, Wis.), The John P. McGovern Museum of Health & Medical Science (Houston, Texas), South Dakota Art Museum at South Dakota State University (Brookings, S.D.) and the Rochester Art Center (Rochester, Minn.) from June 1 through September 30, 2025. Primordial Shift is a work of art. But underlying Meilahn's aesthetic is an agnostic, if not ambivalent, philosophy concerning agronomy or the crop science and the application of that science by horticulturists to plant production for the enhancement and improvement of nature for human and animal life. In that sense, Primordial Shift, along with most of the artist's other installations, are not agents for or of change, but artworks that illuminate the pros and cons of genetic modification. States Meilahn: "With today's sophisticated technology and global positioning, a 24-row corn planter can plant 1,000 acres a day with laser accuracy, 35,000 plants per acre with placement exactly 6" apart, and 1 3⁄4" deep. The instant the seed hits the ground, germination begins. That germination is as primal as it gets. It's everywhere! Just look. The shift part is engineered; with results that are all so convenient. Is this shift good? You decide."  Meilahn (b. 1945) grew up on a family farm near Pickett, in Central Wisconsin. After graduating in 1964 from high school in Ripon where he excelled in art, he entered the University of Wisconsin-River Falls to study agriculture. He subsequently switched his major to art, after he realized agri-business was not his passion. At UW River Falls he took his first course in glass, and in 1966 he started blowing glass. At this time, Harvey Littleton was running the studio glass program at UW Madison, made famous by a slew of glass graduates, the most famous being Dale Chihuly. As an undergraduate, Meilahn spent a quarter abroad working with glass legend Erwin Eisch in Frauenau, Germany, on the Bavaria/Czech border, an area with a rich tradition of glass making. After graduation in 1971, he spent a year in Bolivia as an idealistic Peace Corp volunteer intent on helping people in South America by sharing knowledge he'd learned from farming. Subsequently, he enrolled at Illinois State University, Normal, where Joel Philip Myers had begun a glass program and earned his Masters degree in art.   Ultimately, Meilahn's roots drew him back to his family's farm in 1975 where he and his wife, Jane, raised their children, and where he alternately operated the family farm and the hot glass studio he built. In time, his passion for art and farming became one-in-the-same as a form of creative expression. Since 1996, when he turned 50 and began planting genetic seed, Meilahn's artwork has focused on genetic modification, which has symbiotically shaped his life and work, both as an artist and a farmer. His installations afford viewers the opportunity to view and contemplate the production of corn from the dual perspective of an artist who knows the subject from life. For the past 15 years or so, this convergence has been the basis for a number of important works. Meilahn served as the President of The Board of Directors of the Bergstrom-Mahler Museum of Glass in Neenah, Wisconsin. He has taught at Penland School of Craft in North Carolina and The Archie Bray Foundation in Montana. His work has been exhibited in the traveling museum exhibitions, Wisconsin's Glass Masters and Environmental Impact, produced by David J. Wagner, L.L.C., the annual Smithsonian Craft Show, and at The Corning Museum of Glass, which has also featured the artist's work in its New Glass Review for over four decades. Meilahn says: "An ear of corn is the point of convergence for my dual careers in farming and art. Corn is not a typical subject in art. But for me, the lines, rows, numbers, higher prices, lower prices, color spectrums, mapping, information technology, air masses, and species have all combined to have unwittingly become a catalyst for my art."        

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• Austin Stern - 111325 3.40PM

  Austin Stern's Little Monsters series is a body of work where cartoon-like creatures interact with physical manifestations of their own anxieties. These worries which assail the monsters, gleefully weighing down their minds and bodies, are simultaneously sinister and comical representations of our daily setbacks and stumbling blocks. By approaching this subject matter from a playful perspective, the viewer is invited to find the humor in the small battles we fight daily to find positivity, peace, and happiness. States Stern: "I am inspired by the bright and highly saturated colors found in the toys and cartoons of my childhood, and the patterns found in both nature and the world of fashion. My current work explores interpersonal relationships and mental health. The ways in which we support each other, take care of ourselves, and how we cope with various anxieties and fears are all concepts my work explores through a cheerful lens of brightly colored playful creatures." Blowing glass since the age of 14, Stern attended high school in Palo Alto, California. After earning a degree in glassblowing from Emporia State University in Kansas, the artist moved to Seattle to develop his own artistic practice in the vibrant glassblowing community of the Pacific Northwest.  Stern exhibits his work nationally and internationally, and has been a resident artist and instructor in the United States, Thailand, and Sweden. His work is in private collections around the world and in the permanent collections of The Corning Museum of Glass, The Fort Wayne Museum of Art, The Bangkok Glass Company, and the Samcheok City Public Art Collection in South Korea. He was selected as one of 100 artists included in New Glass Now, a Corning Museum of Glass global survey of contemporary glass that travelled to the Renwick Gallery of Smithsonian Art Museum. In 2026, Stern's work will be exhibited in June at Klüber Gallery in Weinheim, Germany, and he will teach a summer workshop at the Corning Museum of Glass.     

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• Michael Endo: Using Kiln Formed Glass to Explore the Spaces in Between

  An abandoned, dilapidated swimming pool in the forest. A pile of trash smoldering in a secluded backyard. A dark and deserted highway flanked by an unexplained light. Michael Endo's kiln formed glass is about the potential of empty spaces and how people inhabit the subliminal area between the civilized world and wilderness. It begs the question: Is our world real or manufactured?  Says Endo: "Locked in a loop of familiarity and strangeness, my gestural paintings, drawings, glasswork and sculptures exist in a moment of tension. By depicting the boundary between a wild space and the city, I present scenes where my interest in alternative communities, the relationship between space and psychology, occult knowledge, eschatology, ecology and the uncanny converge." To reveal and examine the experiences people tend to gloss over is Endo's primary aesthetic goal. He states: "Some people get turned off by what they perceive as a darkness to the work. But it doesn't bother me. They are entitled to their own opinion, and I don't consider it while I am making the work. I don't think the work is exclusively dark. People read that into it, but I am interested in exploring these marginal spaces and experiences and bringing them forward."  Endo's work is currently on view in What Remains, the fourth exhibition at The Byre, a centuries-old stone barn turned into an exhibition space by Bullseye Projects in Caithness, the northern-most county in mainland Scotland. What Remains features site-specific installations and works by Celia Dowson, Katharine Dowson, Endo, and April Surgent that reflect on stories and experiences reconstructed from fleeting shadows in memory and the earthed-over remnants found in the landscape. The show will remain on view until March 2026. Born in Portland, Oregon, in 1979, Endo received an MFA in painting from Cranbrook Academy of Art, Michigan, in 2009 and a BA from Portland State University, Oregon, in 2005. His studio work has been included in national and international exhibitions at venues such as The National Glass Centre (Sunderland, UK), Disjecta (Portland, Oregon), Yuan Yuan Art Center (Jinan, China), and Bullseye Projects (Portland, Oregon and Mamaroneck, New York). Endo is currently the curatorial consultant at Bullseye Projects, organizing exhibitions at The Byre and assisting with traveling exhibitions and art fairs. In 2019, he moved to Yucca Valley, California, where he founded High Desert Observatory with his partner Emily Endo. Michael is currently the Artistic Director at Pilchuck Glass School. This year was "a banner year" for both interest in and enrollment at Pilchuck, says Endo, who sites the school's successful casting conference and upcoming design conference as high points. Enjoy this conversation with the artist about his studio practice and the balance he maintains between curation, administration, and studio as well as the role Pilchuck plays in glass education around the world.  

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• Ethan Stern: The Revealing Quality of Glass Carving

  Ethan Stern's work is rooted in traditional craftsmanship, contemporary design, and a deep connection to the natural environment. As a glass artist, he draws inspiration from historic craft traditions such as cut crystal and classical ceramic design, while reinterpreting these forms through a modern lens. His practice seeks to explore the interplay between utility, beauty, and narrative, bridging the realms of functional objects and sculptural expression. Stern states: "Central to my approach is the concept of light as a dynamic medium. Glass, with its inherent ability to refract, reflect, and transmit light, becomes a canvas through which I explore optical phenomena and color. I am particularly drawn to the ways in which light interacts with texture, pattern, and form, creating ever-changing visual experiences that invite viewers to engage with my work in a multisensory manner. This exploration pushes the boundaries of materiality, transforming functional objects and sculptural forms into vessels of light."  Pushing form beyond the expected anatomy of the vessel, Stern uses glass to investigate the emotive potential of objects. Each piece begins with the creation of a blown, geometric form composed of multiple layers of color and pattern. After the piece has cooled, he carves into the surface, creating patterns and textures through engraving. This process, while reductive, allows him to shift the glass's inherent reflective qualities, creating a richer, more luminous effect. The engraved marks, like the stroke of a paintbrush on canvas, leave evidence of the artist's hand and create a sense of motion, rhythm, weight, and depth. The act of carving—removing material—demands careful consideration, and each choice shapes the relationship between the surface and form, adding an emotional resonance to the work. Stern began examining the effects he could achieve through engraving in 1999 while at the Pilchuck Glass School. Carving the surface of the glass allowed him to pull together elements of color, form, pattern and texture to express his unique voice through the material. In 2010, he received the Best Emerging Artist award from the Museum of Glass in Tacoma, WA. His work has been featured in solo and group exhibitions across the United States and is featured in the collections of The Eboltoft Glass Museum in Denmark, The Corning Museum, and The Lowe Museum of Art. He has taught at The Studio of the Corning Museum of Glass, Pilchuck Glass School, Pratt Fine Arts Center, Penland School of Craft, The Pittsburgh Glass Center, and The Appalachian Center for Craft. In January 2026, Stern will teach Beyond Battuto – Advanced Coldworking Techniques at the Corning Museum of Glass Studio, Corning, New York.  Says Stern: "In addition to creating art, I am committed to sharing the craft of glassblowing through teaching and community engagement. Ultimately, my work is an ongoing exploration of the intersections between design, craft, and the natural world. It is a dialogue between tradition and innovation, utility and beauty, light and form. By creating pieces that resonate both functionally and emotionally, I hope to inspire reflection, curiosity, and connection to the larger world around us." Born in Ithaca, New York, Stern resides in the Frogtown neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, where he runs a glass studio alongside his wife and creative partner, Amanda McDonald Stern. Their studio specializes in sculpture, design, education and glass fabrication fostering a sense of community around glass. Ethan obtained his Associates degree in Ceramics from TAFE College in Brisbane, Australia, and his BFA in Sculpture and Glass from Alfred University. Of his work, Stern states: "The natural environment offers rich inspiration, from the organic forms and colors of coastlines to the shifting hues of the sky. Through glass, I aim to evoke a sense of interconnectedness, using the material's elemental relationship to earth and fire to bridge the natural and the man-made. While my work draws from history and nature, it is forward-looking, blending traditional techniques with contemporary approaches."     

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• Chaiah Sullivan: The Cactus Guy

  Chaiah (pronounced 'Kaya') Sullivan has been impressing the glass world and Instagram followers with his beautiful and intricate cactus-inspired functional glass to the tune of a 94K following and growing. He came upon the cactus after a friend mistakenly referred to another plant pipe he had created as a cactus and decided to give making a realistic cactus pipe a try. "I never really expected to be the cactus guy," Sullivan says. Growing up in Paonia, a small town on the Western Slope of Colorado, Sullivan first discovered flameworking in 2005 at age 14. Two years later, he started working as an assistant at a local hotshop, North Rim Glass LLC. He practiced as a hobbyist while finishing high school, then put all his focus into glass. In 2010, he attended Penland School of Crafts, located in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. There he studied with Janis Miltenberger, a Washington-based artist who works with borosilicate glass to create large-scale narrative sculpture. Like Sullivan, much of Miltenberger's glass art is inspired by botanical elements found in nature such as leaves and flowers.  In 2013, Sullivan took a series of collaborative classes at Glasscraft in Golden, Colorado, where he had the chance to learn from artists such as Salt and Robert Mickelsen, from whom he learned the hollow sculpting technique he uses today. Says Sullivan: "The inside of my pieces have the same contour as the outside. I put all my ridges in and then along each ridge I add dots; once those are all melted in, I pluck each spike out individually. Sometimes I do get a little sick of plucking thousands of spikes over and over and over again. But once you see all your work come to fruition, it makes it all worth it. There's something about making it functional on top of it being a beautiful art piece that really pushes me." After learning many different styles and techniques, Sullivan explored and experimented to develop his own style of work under the name Unparalleled Glass. He was awarded Dr. Dabber Glass Masters 1st Place in 2023; the Puffco Glass Open 1st Place in 2022; and Champs' Emerging Artist 1st Place in May 2017. Enjoy this conversation about the progression of Sullivan's cactus designs, the device attachments he's been developing and his recently released foot pedals and oxygen systems. He also discusses recent lighting and installation pieces as well as some fun projects in the works.   

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