Aligning himself with the poetry of Walt Whitman, Paul Stankard, longtime resident of Mantua, New Jersey, is celebrated for the intricate, fragile beauty of lampworked still life sculptures of botanical and insect life in clear crystal. A glassblower of scientific instruments for ten years, he initially applied his skills to creative endeavors as a diversion, which became his fulltime pursuit by the early 70s.
Considered the father of modern glass paperweights, Stankard made the decorative object into a vehicle for self expression, instilling a spiritual energy into finely realized microcosms of nature. Over the years, he developed numerous formal and technical refinements, including “cloistering” in which a layer of color glass is laminated to filter or absorb light.
In 2004, New York’s Museum of Arts in Design staged a retrospective Paul Stankard: A Floating World. Forty Years of an American Master in Glass, and more recently his work was showcased in the traveling exhibit Beauty Beyond Nature. The Mike and Anne Belkin Collection, the largest of the artist’s work, was donated to the Akron Museum and a selection is on display.
Distinguished Fellow of the American Craft Council and Master of the Medium at the Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian Institute, Stankard was featured in the episode “Origins” in the PBS series Craft in America.
Website of Paul Stankard