Jack Storms

Career

Born in Exeter, New Hampshire, Storms attended Plymouth State University where he earned a degree in art, studio emphasis, with a minor in art history. After graduation, Storms was introduced to glass while working for a local artist. “The medium spoke to me, and I dove in - head first, I’ve never taken to anything like I’ve taken to this.” he said in a news interview. In 2004 the artist opened StormsWorks Studio, with the idea to give the cold glass sculpting process a new meaning, he believed that the art of cold glass sculpting needed more innovation. His first accomplishment was to create a cold glass lathe, where he was able to turn glass like one would turn wood enabling him to make shapes like eggs, wine bottles and baseball bats using the cold glass process, which otherwise would be impossible. "I use a cutting edge medium to make organic and familiar things," he explained about the process of turning glass on the lathe. The glass artist moved his studio to Valencia, California in 2013, where he expanded his operation and opened Storms Publishing.

Storms specializes in both geometric and representational glass sculptures. Some of his work can be figurative as well as abstract. Storms works with three different types of glass: optical crystal, lead crystal, and dichroic glass. He cuts and stacks slivers of dichroic glass and glues them with a special two part epoxy to achieve a "floating core look," he then layers optic or crystal glass around the first structure, then hand sculpts it into a specific shape. It can take more than ten weeks to produce one piece.[1] Storms' work has been praised for demanding both artistic creativity and mathematical exactitude. He uses the Fibonacci theory at the core of every one of his designs.

In 2011, the Harrington Art Partnership commissioned Storms to create a large glass bell for public display at the Firehouse Arts Center in Pleasanton, California. The five hundred pound, two-foot tall Firehouse Crystal Bell is an allusion to the art gallery's history as the city's first fire station and it was created in part to honor past firefighters. The bell is composed of over eight thousand pieces of glass and features the use of starphire glass in addition to the other three glasses that Storms works with. Storms spent approximately two years working on the optic bell for the Harrington Art Partnership.

In 2012, Douglas Biro commissioned Storms to create a work of art that commemorates Derek Jeter's historic 3000th hit. The Optic Crystal Baseball Bat was designed from three thousand pieces of glass. The work is privately owned and on display in Jeter's home. The Carmel Valley Rotary Club commissioned Storms to create a sculpture as a gift to President of Nigeria Olusegun Obasanjo to mark the opening of the first blood bank in Africa.