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Seekers Glass Gallery presents handblown glass by John Cook, who
designs vases, bowls, sculptural vessels, lamps, other works that offer his
original interpretations of traditional and historic forms.
His work reflects his fascination with the elegant organic
shapes and lustrous colors and surfaces usually associated with the Art Nouveau
style.
Cook is a versatile artist who also creates one-of-a-kind
handblown glass and bronze lamps as well as custom architectural fixtures,
usually in the Art Nouveau style.
His Lotus Lamp series offers his contemporary
interpretation of late 19th and early 20th century Arts
and Crafts era styles. A multi-talented artist, he designs and casts all the
bronze elements for each lamp, then blows the shades with threaded bases that
screw onto the end of each "branch", which he often embellishes with
glass leaves.
His Neo-Leopard series of vases, bowls and covered urns
presents the full range of his glassblowing skills. Using his own formulation of
cobalt and silver nitrate to create the dappled leopard skin pattern on the
exterior, he lines the pieces in brilliant red, one of the most difficult colors
to achieve in glass.
His series of Kroma Covered Jars present his
interpretation of a centuries-old form, often called a ginger jar. He blows each
jar with a white or light colored background decorated with stripes of color
that look as if they might have been hand drawn.
A glass artist since 1968, Cook earned his bachelor of fine
arts degree in glass from the Brooks Institute of Fine Art, Santa Barbara, where
he studied on scholarship and graduated with honors. He lives and works in a
small studio in the rural Northwest.
Cook’s work has been shown at major galleries, juried
exhibitions and museums throughout the United States, including the Santa
Barbara Museum of Art; the de Young Museum, San Francisco; the Philadelphia
Museum of Art; and the Smithsonian’s Renwick Gallery, Washington, DC.
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