Nic McGuireWorks

I have always dreamt of being an artist back when I was a kid. The act of conveying the world through visual images and materials intrigued my senses. I Cultivated these new found skills throughout childhood and built upon them with new techniques I was taught in school. College was my first experience in a hot glass studio. On the first day of class there were huge glowing orange ovens with radiant heat from the fire inside. Mesmerized by the immense heat and energy it took to control the molten glass, it caught my attention. From that day forward I began the long trek of learning to harness and utilize this amazing and exotic material. During my college years I incorporated glass elements into my sculptures for class projects. While at UCSD, I was awarded a scholarship to attend the Pilchuck glass school up in Washington which introduced me to a great community of fellow artists working in the same materials. I graduated with a B.A. in Visual Arts from UC San Diego in 2004. Since graduating from College, I have been producing original artworks from my local glass studio. I had the opportunity to gain experience maintaining and managing a glass studio in my hometown of Encinitas, CA for many years. From there I was able to learn more about the properties of glass, working with glass on a regular basis, not just during my time to make art from it, but to tend to it as if it were a child. The glass is alive when it is hot, it has a mind of its own and a memory. It has a mysteriousness about it that captures our curiosity. Hard like a rock, yet as transparent as the air we look through. The molten glass has exotic properties compared to other materials you come into contact with on a day to day basis. It glows with a brilliance of color and emits an enormous amount of heat that challenge me as a sculptor to find a way to control these extreme properties in order to achieve a finished piece of art. My glass work incorporates complex Venetian sculpture techniques with modern forms and my own color palettes to produce the current series. Utilizing a skilled team of glass artists to build a single sculpture consisting of multiple parts, we work together as a seamless machine, moving about in the hot shop in what is described as a well-choreographed dance. Together we share the workload, adding new parts at just the right moment, so as to keep the rhythm and tempo of the glass progressing into its final shape. Once the piece of glass has cooled down, I then bring it into another workshop where it is then cut and polished for a refined first-class finish. The intricate patterns and skillfully crafted forms make each piece of art a unique one of a kind sculpture. Currently working on multiple series of feathers and modern abstract designs at my studio in San Diego, California. I enjoy spending my time making high quality original glass sculptures.