Jeff Holmwood

Seekers^® Glass Gallery presents the work of Jeff Holmwood, who combines classic techniques with contemporary styling to create a series of stunning sculptural vessels.

Jeff’s signature series, the one for which he is known best, is his Vortex Vessel. In this technically challenging and visually dramatic series, he integrates an elegant form with a complex surface design that results in a unique vortex pattern on each piece.

Creating each Vortex Vessel is difficult, time consuming and subject to failure because of the many difficult to control variables of technique and chemistry.

He pre-makes black glass cane, then later gathers a bubble of hot molten glass and picks up pieces of cane onto the bubble and twists it to a 90 degree angle. He uses a second pipe to create the axis vortex, allowing the pattern to open.

Because of the technical limitations of this complex process, Jeff uses black as a background color and either rust-red, yellow, green, or a combination of these colors to create the vortex of fluid motion that draws the viewer into the center of the piece.

The successfully completed Vortex Vessel offers a graceful silhouette that tapers to a small point at top and bottom, with lines of black and color swirling in a vivid pattern that is distinctive to each vessel.

Jeff attended the University of Calgary, where he studied English, then followed his true calling as an artist and studied glass at the Alberta College of Art and Design.

He has taught glass at three of the world’s most respected glass schools: Pilchuck Glass School, founded by Dale Chihuly, in Washington state; the Penland Craft School in North Carolina; and the Red Deer College near Alberta.

Among the many corporate and private collections in which his work is represented, in Canada and the United States, is the Alberta Foundation of the Arts in Edmonton. Jeff moved to Edmonton in 2001 and established his own studio there.