VanderLaan & Bliss Gradalupe Glass Corporation Contemporary Glass
Peter VanderLaan says, "I've been hopelessly addicted to glass for the last twenty-eight years. I have rolled up crushed car windshields and melted them, stripped putty and aluminum siding from salvage windows and melted them, screened arroyo sand and melted that, derived sophisticated formulae using food grade lime in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and melted that. I’ve thrown snowballs into my furnace for hours. I’ve done foundation research on batch formulae for independent studio use. I am as fascinated with the chemistry of glass color as I am with making beautiful things out of it."
Peter attended Saint John's College, Santa Fe, NM. His professional experience has included working as teaching assistant to Dale Chihuly and Dan Daily, Pilchuck Glass School, Seattle, WA; teaching glass with Fritz Dreisbach, Shorty Finley and Mary Beth Bliss at Texas Tech in Lubbock, TX, and co-founding Guadalupe Glass Corporation, an open-air demonstration glass works and showroom in Santa Fe, NM.
Mary Beth Bliss "When Peter and I built our first studio, I discovered how very much I love to build. My early work in alternative energy and architecture has always informed my work in glass. I build my glass into intricate sequences of layers. Then I cut back through the layers to reveal, in their interiors, a rich world of complexity suffused in brilliant color. Each individual layer is lovingly rubbed, etched or tinted and creates an internal architecture of hidden balance, loss, revelation and illusion. It is an intoxicating material. I fully expect to explore it for the rest of my life."
Mary holds her BA from Saint John's College, Santa Fe, NM. She has taught photo-etching with Frite Dreisbach, Shorty Finley and Peter VanderLann at Texas Tech in Lubbock, TX and co-founded the Guadalupe Glass Corporation in Santa Fe, NM.