Author Archives: dale_beevers

Shari Maxsom Hopper Artist Bio

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Started working in glass in the 1970’s.

Shari Maxsom Hopper and her husband David Hopper both attended San Jose State University in the late 1960s. David received the first MA in Glass in 1969. They went to Europe 1960/70 and Shari wrote a paper for Dr. Fritz on glass factories and processes in Europe. On returning they joined Douglas and Carol Boyd in Chico and co-founded Orient and Flume. The partnership ended in 1982. David Hopper went on to innovate photo ceramic processes. From the late 1970s to the mid 1980s Shari Hopper visited glass beadmakers in Central Europe to learn their techniques and document how they made beads. Shari is one of the founding members of the International Society of Glass Beads and uses intricate photo processes in her work.

Bohemian Beadmaking 
by Shari Maxson Hopper
Copyright 2000
www.artcoinc.com/bohemian_beadmaking.php 

Shari Maxsom Hopper
1998 Lamp blown; photographic transfer applied and fired, enamel, borosilicate glass

Katherine Gray Artist Bio

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Started working in glass in 1990s.
www.katherine-gray.com

Katherine Gray received her undergraduate degree from Ontario College of Art in Toronto and her MFA 1991 from Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, Rhode Island. Her work has been exhibited most recently at See Line Gallery and Acuna-Hansen Gallery, both in Los Angeles, and been reviewed in the LA Times and on Artforum.com. It can also be found in the collections of the Corning Museum of Glass and the Tacoma Museum of Glass, among others. Katherine has written about glass, curated several exhibitions, and has taught workshops around the world. Currently, she lives and works in Los Angeles, California. In 2007 she joined the Art Faculty at California State University, San Bernardino.

My work primarily involves glass. It is a material that we spend a lot of time not looking at, but I have invested a good part of my artistic livelihood trying to perfect working with it, to make visible the invisible. This means highlighting both the material itself but also the long journey towards glassblowing mastery. I want my work to represent the inequity that exists between sublime beauty and manufacturing extravagance, because I have arrived at a place where I am no longer confident that I made the right choice. At the very least, my subtle disillusionment is overwhelmed by the value in making things in a society increasingly ruled by machines and simulated experiences.

“Aglow”
Katherine Gray
2012
pre-existing ice buckets, lead crystal and acrylic stand
48″ tall, 30″ diameter

“White Mounds”
Katherine Gray
2008
Blown Glass
20 x 20 x 10 in.

Lee Granberg Artist Bio

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Has been working in glass since 2004.

After 40+ years in social services and the business world, on her 60th birthday, Lee decided to change directions.  She had always wondered if she had a creative bone in her body and this seemed like the time to begin to explore this.   She happened upon The Crucible, and enrolled in Beginning Fused Glass with Mary White and Janet Hiebert.   She has been working with glass (fusing, kiln casting, and flame working) ever since and discovered her  passions:  creating glass art, teaching glass art at the Crucible’s Youth Camps, and supporting art education for youth.

Lee loves the challenge and the infinite potential in glass.  It enables her to be creative in ways unlike any other medium (she has dabbled in painting and welding).  Lee’s  inspirations are her life experiences, family, friends, and humankind, in general.

Lee works with 2 other glass artists in a shared studio at the Crucible.  They call themselves “Go Go Glass” (one of Lee’s  first “careers”, back in the 60’s, was as a Go Go Dancer).  Lee is so happy when she’s working in the studio, that she dances and sings, joined at times by her studio mates, Barbara Barnett and Peggy Wilson, thus the name of the group.