by Jonah Holland, PR & Marketing Coordinator, Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden
If you love the Hans Godo Frabel’s Glorious Glass in the Garden exhibit at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden — you may be interested in seeing some of the glass-working process actually take place here at the Garden.
Local glass artist, Brad Pearson, will be here at the Garden leading several flame-work glass demonstrations in the North Wing of the Conservatory, on Saturday August 21, and September 11, at both 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. The glass work demonstration will allow you to learn more about how this delicate sculpture is created.
Brad Pearson demonstrates flamework glass technique at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden
Brad Pearson, a professional lamp-work glass artist, is a graduate of VCU, and teaches intermediate and advanced glass classes around the country, including at the Visual Arts Center of Richmond. Like Frabel, Brad first developed his love of precision and detail through work with a scientific glass blowing firm. For the past decade, he has refined his lamp working skills and pushed the boundaries of design and small-scale hot glass work.
Rachel Cooper, who writes for About.com, was here for his first demonstration in July:
“The cool thing that we learned was how he blends glass colors together using powdered glass and melts it onto the surface. This creates a unique swirling color pattern. It was fascinating to watch,” she says.
Brad, are you the brad who was the boyfriend of an OT student at MCV who was in school with my wife Susan. My name is terry duffey. I think you came to our wedding on church hill. Regardless, you gave us beautiful glass bowl that you had blown as a gift. That was in 1991. We still cherish it. Terry.
Terry,
I passed along your full comment to Brad. But I edited it here because I didn’t think you’d want your phone number on the Internet. I hope you hear from him. He certainly does incredible glass work. ~Jonah