About Brian Willis
Artist Statement
My artistic life began as a young boy watching my dad create in his shop on the edge of our property in a land covered with sage brush and apple trees. Whether he was making a garden pagoda or a cutting board he taught me an early appreciation of hard work, fine craft and aesthetic detail. My love of glass began at the same time when I
My artistic life began as a young boy watching my dad create in his shop on the edge of our property in a land covered with sage brush and apple trees. Whether he was making a garden pagoda or a cutting board he taught me an early appreciation of hard work, fine craft and aesthetic detail. My love of glass began at the same time when I would collect pop bottles to redeem for a few cents. I was (and still am) mesmerized by the way light played with the surface and by the sounds the bottles would make as they bounced around in my bicycle basket. The best bottles were never redeemed. They stayed on my bedroom window sill where I could enjoy them as the piercing sunlight exploded around the room. My fascination never waned and to this day my love of the outdoors combined with a passion for history inform my work, revealing a trace of hand in a vintage context. Mixing natural, found and re-purposed elements with unexpected materials keeps my creativity engaged. I am currently obsessed with the notion of glass fringe. The delicacy and refractive beauty of glass combined with the loose and playful nature of fringe is a match made in my creative heaven. And the resulting sound is the sweetest lullaby you could ever hear.