Talking Out Your Glass podcast

Peter Hermansson, based in Jamshog, Sweden, is an internationally acclaimed master glass artist whose work bridges contemporary innovation and historical tradition. His artistry captures the essence of Swedish glassmaking, reinterpreted through the lens of his distinctive, graphically expressive graffiti-inspired style. 
A graduate of the renowned Orrefors National Glass School, Hermansson has spent over two decades refining and evolving the Swedish glass techniques of Graal and Ariel. These methods have become hallmarks of his signature style, celebrated for their intricate craftsmanship and creative depth. Central to Hermansson's practice is storytelling, which he achieves through sandblasted graphic illustrations on the surfaces of his glass vessels. This technique infuses each piece with a dynamic visual narrative, reinforcing the profound connection between fine art and craft.
Graal is a century-old Swedish technique that embeds narrative imagery within blown glass. Hermansson constructs a blank from multiple thin layers of colored glass, then masks and sandblasts through them to build the motif—a meticulous process that can take up to two weeks. Once reheated and blown, the imagery expands, bends, and wraps around the vessel. This layered construction allows the exterior and interior to carry entirely different colors and motifs while maintaining a remarkably thin wall. After two decades of experimentation, Hermansson continues to push Graal beyond its traditional limits, developing new tools and methods that transform the vessel into a complex, multidimensional image.
Hermansson's journey into glassblowing started when he set foot in Pukebergs Glassworks, nestled in the Swedish city of Nybro, where he fell in love with the historical vibration. The imposing walls, the smell of propane, the radiating heat from industrial furnaces, and the stories shared by factory workers caught his imagination. Eager to learn more about glass, he enrolled in a two-year program to acquire basic glassworking skills, followed by three and a half year as an apprentice at a Swedish master glassblower's studio. 
However, it was not until 2012, during Hermansson's first sold-out show called Dark Was the Night, that he made the shift from music to pursue a full-time career as a glass artist. He opened his own blowing studio in 2019, 13 STUDIO, in collaboration with his friend Bjørn Friborg. The workshop is located inside the glass factory of Målerås, an area with a strong history of glass making dating back to 1740 and which earned the name of kingdom of glass.
In early 2025, Hermansson's work was exhibited in his debut solo exhibition in the US, titled ALTER EGO, held at Method & Concept, Naples, Florida. Writes Chad Jensen, Director/Curator: "Hermansson's work is profoundly exciting and unparalleled in the world of glass. Peter is a rare talent who seamlessly balances concept and craft, authentically finding his voice and expression through the interplay of material and process."
With current exhibitions in Venice in Homo Faber's An Island of Light and in New York with The Future Perfect in the exhibition USE ME, I`M FRAGILE, Hermansson has a full schedule for the remainder of this year and into the next. He'll be exhibiting glass along with his lithographic prints at Galleri Nord in Orebro, Sweden, from November 28 through December 12, 2026. Next year, events include a solo exhibition at Traver gallery in Seattle in April; and the upcoming GAS conference, which will be held in Kosta, Sweden in June. There, Hermansson will collaborate with Raven Skyriver and work as a gaffer for his wife Kirsten Hermansson at her demo.
Says Hermansson: "I went from being a musician to learning to blow glass. It felt similar to learning a new instrument. I think the same synapses in the brain get activated when you play music and blow glass. The timing, the playing together in the band, the tonality, the groove, the swing and the beat, it all feels like playing a concert"

From his 1999 Millennium Window for St. Mary's, Masham, to his 2022 Ukrainian Canadian Window for St. James, Paddington, and beyond, the UK's Glenn Carter has proven again and again the emotional power of light and glass. In his body of work commissioned for both religious and domestic buildings and exhibitions, strong personal narrative and symbolism are signature elements.
Says Carter: "Stained glass windows are amongst the few objects that cast no shadow. Instead, they radiate colored light, transforming a space into an illuminated area, a place in which enlightenment is potentially more than a metaphor. Historically, the most sublime windows, secular and religious, are examples of light becoming an opportunity for contemplation and transformation from darkness to light. Stained glass is reminiscent of music, and its impact is felt profoundly."
A freelance glass maker based in Plymouth, England, Carter's early history with the medium includes studies at Portsmouth College of Art 1974 to 1977. He served as glass lecturer at Plymouth College of Art, now Plymouth University of The Arts, from 2012 to 2018 and at North Lands Creative Glass in Lybster, Caithness, Scotland, with glass artist Richard Whiteley. Carter has also been a visiting instructor in the US at Pilchuck Glass School, Stanwood, WA; UrbanGlass, Brooklyn, NY; University of the Arts, Philadelphia, PA; Tyler School of Art, Philadelphia, PA; and Rochester Institute of Technology, NY.
Holding an MVA from the glass department at the Australian National University in Canberra, Carter's cast glass reveals glass forms inspired by the architecture and landscape of this period and linked by his drawings. Beginning in 2009, this sculptural series continues today.
From 1995 through 2000, Carter was part of the conservation and restoration department of Lincoln Cathedral Workshops, working on the highly prestigious 13th-century Deans Eye window. This gave him a thorough grounding in accessing and developing an ethical and considered approach to conserving and restoring historic stained glass – an experience that continues to inform and consolidate his practice to this day.
An elected Fellow of the British Society of Master Glass Painters (BSMGP), Carter's considerable number of design projects across the UK have been carried out on behalf of a wide range of churches and domestic buildings spanning the 13th to the 21st centuries. These projects include a broad range of painted glass restorations utilizing selective restoration procedures, glazing options and installation. The studio has also undertaken numerous plain glazing and quarried leaded light scheme of works, including ventilation solutions.
As UK commissions for larger buildings are scarce at the moment, Carter currently focuses his practice on restoration and personal work including cast glass or painted and leaded light projects. Constantly drawing, he has begun printing images that may be adapted to glass via painting, staining, leading, sandblasting or engraving.

In 2026, Hannah Gibson created Recycling Narratives, No Matter the Weight, in collaboration with textile artist Naomi Beevers. This collaborative work was shared with the public at Laura Donefer's Glass Fashion Show held at the Glass Art Society conference at the Corning Museum of Glass in June. The work consists of thousands of individual pieces of recycled cast glass, each made from donated glass carrying its own story and hand assembled into a wearable dress. Created from glass contributed by people around the world, the installation explores the emotional and physical weight carried through illness, loss, hope and survival, transforming individual experiences into a collective portrait of resilience, compassion and connection.
Working predominantly with recycled glass, Gibson transforms glass that has played a meaningful role in people's lives, from medicine bottles and insulin vials to perfume bottles, windscreens and everyday domestic objects, into cast sculpture that preserves the histories embedded within the material. Every object is carefully selected for the story it carries, allowing experiences of healing, celebration, loss and survival to become inseparable from the finished work. Through this process, she invites audiences to reconsider the social, emotional and cultural significance of the objects that shape our lives.
Growing up at the foothills of Snowdonia, overlooking the Menai Strait, Gibson developed an early fascination with geology, leading her to study Geology at the University of Edinburgh. While there, an interest in glass grew into a lifelong passion. She later completed a Master's in Glass at The University College of Arts in Farnham, where she began developing the bodies of work Recycling Narratives and Whispering Sweet Nothings. Returning as Artist in Residence, her research explored materiality and the transformative potential of recycled glass, laying the foundations for a practice that continues to investigate the relationship between object, memory and cultural heritage.
Gibson's work has received international recognition, including the Award of Excellence at Habatat Detroit in 2024, First Prize in the Glass Art Society's Trace: An Exploration of Sustainable Glass Art in 2023, being shortlisted for the Coburg Prize for Contemporary Glass in 2022, and being Highly Commended in The Glass Prize in both 2021 and 2022. Her work has been exhibited internationally at the Corning Museum of Glass, the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, the Imagine Museum, the National Liberty Museum and the Royal Scottish Academy, as well as at SOFA Chicago, COLLECT, PAN Amsterdam, the British Glass Biennale, Habatat Detroit Fine Art, Habatat North Carolina, The Etienne Gallery, Gallery TEN and London Glassblowing. Her work will be on view in The Other Glass: The Art of Recycled Glass, at the Stourbridge Glass Museum, Wordsley, August 28 through February 27, 2027; and also at The British Glass Biennale in St Helen's, UK, from August 28 through November 1, 2026.
https://www.stourbridgeglassmuseum.org.uk/featured-exhibitions/
Alongside her studio practice, Gibson creates public art, delivers lectures and workshops internationally, and continues to expand the possibilities of recycled glass. Gibson's work demonstrates how materials that have completed their original purpose can become enduring works of art, preserving personal narratives while contributing to wider conversations about sustainability, memory and our relationship with the material world.
States Gibson: "For almost three decades, my practice has explored the creative and technical potential of recycled glass. As both a glass artist and a geologist, I am fascinated by the stories held within materials and the traces of human experience they contain. Through recycling and recasting these objects, I seek to preserve their histories while creating new forms and meanings."

Using glass as a medium to capture and refract light, David Yeshia seeks to freeze moments of transition, combining myriad elements to manipulate their visual and symbolic effects. Also a metaphor for his life at the time, Yeshia was smashing glass and rebuilding the fragments into something beautiful. A new breed of "artrepreneur," he emerged from the Covid pandemic bringing art out of the gallery and into the public marketplace by developing accessible and affordable works. 
A self-taught Canadian glass artist known for his signature fused glass techniques, Yeshia has developed innovative methods including his "Glass Netting" technique, "Glascade" and signature "Free Mosaic" forms exploring glass as both structure and light. He was nominated for the Emerging Glass Artist of the Year Award by the Glass Art Society and has created sculptural works for government commissions and collectors across Canada. His work is sold at Walt Disney World, and his process-focused storytelling has attracted over 400,000 followers across social media, with his videos reaching tens of millions of views.
Yeshia attended Concordia University Fine Arts, graduating in 2013 with a Bachelor of Arts Degree with a double major in Theater and Religious Studies. In 2017, as an exotic mushroom cultivator in Montreal, Yeshia's business was hit hard by the Covid pandemic's impact on the restaurant and food industries. At 30 years old, he moved back in with his parents in the countryside just outside of Pembroke, Ontario—emotionally drained, uncertain about the future, and feeling like a failure. Dejected, without direction, he began to experiment with glass in the stained glass studio of his father, Jeffrey Melamed, an architect turned stained glass artist. 
Says Yeshia: "When I was struggling and trying to rebuild my life, my family rallied around me. Their enthusiasm for my work gave me the encouragement and confidence to keep going. My mother began attending markets, my father helped with displays, shows, and accounting, and my sister brought her creativity and many great product ideas."
Yeshia's business Artglas has expanded to Markham, Ontario, and now employs a staff of seven. Early on, a pivotal meeting with Disney's Keith Bryan inspired the artist's early series of fused glass art and eventually led to his ongoing contract to design and produce ornaments for Disney.
In September 2026, Artglas will return to exhibit in "The Transparent Breath," an International exhibition of glass jewelry held at Venice Glass Week. Specializing in experimental fusing techniques to create contemporary glass jewelry that represents the Canadian identity, Yeshia's Venice collection showcases his unique talents of incorporating 24-karat gold and silver into the glass.
"This will be our fifth time at Venice Glass Week. It was an honor to be amongst some of the greatest glass artists of our time, in one of the world's most historic hubs of the arts," said Yeshia. "And it was overwhelming connecting with artists from all over the world, sharing our work and creativity in such an inspiring environment."
In 2027, Yeshia's company will also expand its online education and subscriber platforms, open a gallery and second studio space, and create more room for one-of-a-kind and conceptual work. Artglas also has new commercial projects in development, including a Disney concept still awaiting approval.
Says Yeshia: "As Artglas grew, I had to learn how to wear many different hats, including artist, maker, employer, marketer, content creator, educator, salesperson, and business owner, while still preserving the meaning, symbolism, and quality of the work."

Demonstrating at the 2026 Glass Art Society conference at the Studio of the Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, New York, 24-year-old Jack Spitzer impressed the standing-room-only crowd as he created a vessel form from his Stochastic Series. The young glassblowing phenom was met with enthusiastic applause as he carried out a technical move known as "The Laydown."
Born in July of 2025, Spitzer's Stochastic Series started as opaque vessels and transformed into the current transparent cane vessels. The newer work debuted at Sandra Ainsley Gallery last week. These new vessels explore color, form, pattern, and gesture. Each piece pulses with energy, balancing technical precision with spontaneity.
Says Spitzer: "The Stochastic vessels are all about the pattern. The pattern is unique in the way that I do it. I've never seen this pattern made in glass before. The canes are created in the hotshop and then manipulated into the squiggle shapes. They are then picked back up in the hotshop in a very compressed format. Very traditional venetian cane techniques— with an innovative twist…… or you could say squiggle." 
With work formed around a strong grasp of the fundamentals of glassblowing, Spitzer enjoys exploring and creating contemporary themes using traditional techniques. He likes to use basic shapes and skills to express the craftsmanship of the bubble in work that is constantly changing and growing. 
Born in Tacoma, Washington, Spitzer is a product of the Pacific Northwest glass scene. His early exposure to the medium, influenced by his grandmother's involvement with the Museum of Glass, led him to begin blowing glass at age 12. He spent his middle school and high school years at the Hilltop Artists program, a youth development arts nonprofit in Tacoma operating deeply impactful programs since 1994 with broad community support and a track record of success.Hilltop Artists uses glass art to connect young people from diverse cultural and economic backgrounds to better futures.
Spitzer, who sets the standard for the younger generation of glass makers, has been apprenticing for Dante Marioni and working on Dale Chihuly's glassblowing team for the last three years. His early connection to the material and its history has shaped his own practice rooted in tradition, yet driven by innovation. Spitzer is represented by Sandra Ainsley Gallery in Toronto and Tom Hawk Gallery in Columbus, Ohio. In September 2026, he will demonstrate at the 11th International Glass Festival held in Odunpazarı, Eskişehir, Turkey. In 2027, he'll return as a gaffer to Pilchuck Glass School, Stanwood, Washington.