Side Street Studio Blog | The best art that B.C. can offer

Christopher Smith

 I have been working in glass as an artist for over thirty years. I began as an apprentice in a studio involved in Stained Glass restoration and residential, religious and commercial stained glass commissioned work. I also had the prividge of taking a course in studio glass blowing at the Art College of Alberta in 1975. I set up my own studio in Nanaimo in 1977.

I began fusing and slumping glass as a sideline to my stained glass work in 1978 and completed a few commissions of fused and bent glass lamps for a Victoria restaurant. There was little market for warm glass at that time and stained glass and sandblasted commissions paid the bills.

 Over the years I would bend replacement glass panels for antique lampshades and make glass sculpture that included bent glass components. In 1992 I had a show at the Nanaimo Art Gallery at Malaspina University College featuring bent and fused plate glass sculpture.
The design process gets more involved all the time. Initially I was fusing fairly 2-D designs but after some study I began working in cast glass and colour bar last year, I’ve begun creating pieces with more depth and interesting elements inside the piece itself.

A lot of what I create needs cold work to produce a polished glass edge on these very thick pieces. The polishing process sometimes involves a diamond saw and a wet belt machine using over 6 different belts and finally cerium oxide and felt.
As I design and fire more pieces suggest themselves and soon they too become manifest. Even after all these years I still excited by all the possibilities that warm glass possesses. You can seem more of Chris Smith’s magnificent work at www.sidestreetstudio.com