Josh Simpson is part of the first generation of American glass artists who, captivated by the unique properties and expressive potential of glass, forged their own paths for creative and professional growth. He developed his own glass formulas and a distinctive artistic style, transforming even commercial pieces into significant artistic endeavors. In doing so, he blurs the line between work made for the market and work made for personal expression.
Prepared by: S. Jovičić, I. Mijalković
Josh Simpson, one of the most esteemed American glass artists, has been achieving exceptional breakthroughs in material research for more than five decades – experimenting with the blending and melting of minerals and metals, and shaping them with fire and his own breath. That is why he has recently been called the glass alchemist.
He began working at a time when the American Studio Glass movement was just emerging and universities were establishing the first studios. He started learning to blow glass in 1972 as a student at Godard College in Plainfield (Vermont), where he created his first studio. He grew up and was educated in Connecticut, New York, and Vermont, and since 1976 he is living and working in Shelburn Falls, a village in western Massachusetts.
Just five or six years after he started working with glass, he held a solo exhibition at the White House. Rosalynn Carter, then First Lady of the United States, purchased his goblets for the presidential residence. Shortly thereafter, the Corning Museum of Glass invited him to exhibit his goblets in a group show that toured the United States.
...Every night, the last thing I do is walk from the house to my studio to check the furnaces. Sometimes seeing an aurora borealis, watching a storm develop down the valley, or looking at the sky on a perfect summer night, compels me to translate some of the wonder of the universe into my glass. This process doesn’t happen in any planned way, but gradually and unpredictably. I never try to replicate what I see around me and in fact often don't recognize the source of inspiration until someone points it out to me later. Molten glass consists of sand and metallic oxides combined with extraordinary, blinding heat. The result is a material that flows like honey. When it's hot, glass is alive! It moves gracefully and inexorably in response to gravity and centripetal force. It possesses an inner light and transcendent radiant heat that make it simultaneously one of the most rewarding and one of the most frustrating materials for an artist to work with. Most of my work reflects a compromise between the molten material and me; each finished piece is a solidified moment when we both agree
Josh Simpson
EXPERIMENTING WITH GLASS
From the very beginning, Josh experimented with the material—adding to the furnace various minerals and metals he could get his hands on, and seeking out literature, since the textbooks were still non-existent. His direct and unencumbered work with glass, free from the constraints of formal education and nascent market trends, made him a pioneer and visionary in glass art. That also made him a leader of artistic associations, a professor, and a gallery owner. Josh belongs to the first generation of American glass artists who, captivated by the properties and expressive potential of glass, created their own conditions for work and professional development. They crafted their own glass formulas, furnaces, and tools, approached gallery owners with their work and sold their pieces at various fairs. Establishing their own associations, education departments and schools, they promoted glass art in the media and numerous local communities. It was self-understandable that the production of functional objects (such as jewelry, drinking glasses, vases, etc.) was a priority because the income from sales enabled their studios to survive and provided the means for material research and non-commercial work. The best among them, like Josh Simpson, managed to develop their own glass formulas and an original working style that turn even commercial pieces into major artistic challenges and significant works, blurring the line between work for the market and work for oneself.
Josh belongs to the first generation of American glass artists who, captivated by the properties and expressive potential of glass, created their own conditions for work and professional development. They developed their own glass formulas, furnaces, and tools, offered their works to gallery owners and sold them at various fairs, founded associations, sections, and schools, and promoted studio glass in the media and local communities. It was understood that creating functional objects – jewelry, glasses, vases, and similar items – took priority, as income from sales sustained the studio and provided resources for material research and non-commercial work.
UNIVERSE IN GLASS
Josh Simpson’s entire body of work is inspired by the universe. The objects he creates express his fascination with colors, shapes, light, patterns, complexity and behavior of the cosmos—what space enthusiasts often call ” work of the universe.” His wife, Cady Coleman, is a retired NASA astronaut, and he himself pilots smaller aircrafts. Fans of his work even know which cosmological and astronomical research he is currently following, as regular updates from his studio often include news from NASA and similar sources.
His best-known works are the “Planets,” imagined worlds of distant, unexplored galaxies. These are spheres of white (transparent) glass, ranging in diameter from 4.5 to 30 centimeters or more, filled with fictional continents, mountains, forests, oceans, beaches, and even exotic structures (a living world, settlements, etc.). He categorizes them into “Inhabited Planets” (with cities, spaceships, etc.), “Possibly Inhabited Planets” (leaving it to the viewer to decide whether life might exist in the interior they see), and “Gaseous Giants” (Jupiter-type planets). All of them are made of layers of glass, one on top of the other, following a set scenario of the planet’s life or its rotation, just as Josh envisions it. The initial layers form the planet’s core and geography, while the subsequent ones add other elements, all the way to the satellites, spaceships, and clouds in the final layers
EXCEPTIONAL RESEARCHER AND INNOVATOR
Each year, Joe produces ten or more new glass colors, formed into glass rods of various profiles and textures. Then he tests each new rod by creating a newPlanet, to ensure that it is compatible with the other glass he uses. If, after the annealing process, which can last up to 40 days, the Planet does not crack and the rod’s color remains unchanged, it becomes evidence of a successful artistic process—a so-called “Artist Proof” Planet. Buyers of these prototype Planets, which serve as the foundation for further applications of the original solution in other works, also receive a package of the tested rod pieces. Josh’s new glass rods can amaze artists and curators. Considered authentic works of art, they are often acquired for museums’ collections.
Planets glass series
He began making Planets in the mid-1970s as a form of entertainment for himself and the schoolchildren who visited his studio. At that time, when he was just starting his artistic career, he mostly created goblets that he could make on his own (without the team of collaborators he can afford today) and sold most easily, while the Planets were his playground of imagination where he, in his free time, invented and built his own worlds. It was then that he embarked on a fun adventure that eventually became known as the Infinity Project.
He leaves his Planets (usually small, with a diameter of 4.5 cm) in different places, hoping that some archaeologists in the distant future will discover them and learn about the world in which they were created. It all began as a fun activity for local children visiting his studio but evolved into a lasting initiative that continually invites people around the globe to hide Josh’s Planets in exotic, mysterious, or personally meaningful locations. Today, they are hidden throughout the United States and in 66 countries around the world—at the bottoms of rivers, seas, in treetops, buried in fields, on the peaks of snowy mountains, and in many other places. While his wife, Cady Coleman, was still an active astronaut, she even left them in space.
Josh Simpson’s Planets are most often presented and exhibited as paperweights. As they have become highly prized among curators and collectors of glass, in 2005 he was invited to create the thousandth paperweight for the Corning Museum of Glass collection. That coincided with his musings about making larger Planets because bigger works are a greater challenge for the artist. Accepting the challenge, he spent seven months preparing his studio for the project called Megaplanet. He had to replace the entire electrical installation in his studio (which even required digging a tunnel under the road leading to the studio), modify the construction of his glass furnaces, and buy a new generator (because a power outage during the 12-week annealing of the Megaplanet would have been disastrous for the project). It wasn’t until his fourteenth attempt that he succeeded in producing a satisfactory piece, serving as merely the technical foundation for the final Megaplanet. He then created three versions (each with a diameter of 33 cm and weighing about 50 kilograms), and the Corning Museum of Glass selected one, which became the thousandth specimen in their collection of paperweights.
Saturn
The work on the Planets expanded into another incredibly challenging form called Saturn. These sculptures allow Josh to explore the concept of a planet surrounded by swirling matter or a black hole also surrounded by concentrated energy. Each piece is as a counterpoint between a spherical center and a large, slender vortex—a combination that is extremely difficult to make in glass. It requires an entire team working for hours in focused collaboration to transfer the look and energy of Saturn’s rings into glass.
Most of Josh Simpson’s works are created within the three series that are considered his signature. These are “New Mexico Glass,” “Tektite Glass,” and “Corona Glass.” Each series is based on an original artistic technique that allows for an unlimited number of variations, making every piece unique.
New Mexico
“New Mexico Glass,” characterized by Josh’s unique usage of metal oxides, was discovered as early as 1973, just one year after he began learning to blow glass. It is made by melting metallic silver onto the hot surface of black glass. By carefully controlling the temperature and the flow of oxygen and propane inside the furnace, the color is intensified and enriched. The result is a colorful blue crystalline glass filled with irregular swirls. These vivid patterns of blue “New Mexico Glass” evoke a starry night, and to some, they even resemble telescopic photographs of cosmic nebulas, extraterrestrial landscapes, or stormy seas. Josh’s innovative work with silver received public recognition as early as 1979, when the Corning Museum of Glass invited him to exhibit six “New Mexico” goblets in a travelling exhibition showcasing “new glass.” This recognition encouraged further exploration of the technique, which he later expanded to include other metals (such as copper and reactive silver) and other glass colors (white, red, orange, green, and more).
I have used silver as a colorant in my glass for more than 50 years. Silver is the most versatile coloring metal! It can produce a wide range of colors... from Yellows, to purples, greens, blues and grey in reflected light as well as Red, orange and brown in transmitted light. On the glass surface, it can be reflective like a mirror!
- Josh Simpson, 2024.
Red “New Mexico” glass resembles unusual red rocks or even Mars. White glass in reaction with silver changes color when it is viewed against a dark background or filled with dark liquid. Using this technique, Josh makes various forms – paperweights, vases, plates, bowls, and more. His research into the use of silver in glassmaking continues to this day, and he incorporates silver in almost all of his works.
Tektite Glass
Josh Simpson’s least commercial works are from the Tektite Glass series. These sculptures are inspired by meteorites – extraterrestrial solid matter that falls to Earth and forms tektites. While studying the chemical formula of a tektite he received as a gift from the editor of Sky & Telescope magazine, Josh created his own material – tektite glass – over 40 years ago. In its molten state, the glass behaves like knotty volcanic lava, and Josh cannot fully control it; he can only guide it until the material naturally reaches its final form. He then combines the rough, unassuming surface of the tektite glass with elegant, often intricate reverses – conceptual designs from the Planets series, New Mexico glass, and others. This creates the impression that seemingly crude, almost carbonized elements of the universe are actually gateways concealing a hidden, magnificent world filled with light and color.
Corona glass
Today, Josh is primarily engaged with works from his third series of original pieces, which he calls “Corona Glass.” Although as early as 1978 he accidentally (while experimenting daily) produced the first glass that he would refer to as “corona” 30 years later, he did not record the formula for the mixture that, when melted, produces fantastic swirls of color. In the years that followed, he carried out hundreds of expensive experiments (silver nitrate was necessary) until 2008, when, due to the recession, he had more free time than usual and finally rediscovered that lost formula. “Corona Glass” is essentially his version of the Venetian technique that mimics the natural stone chalcedony.
Corona Glass is essentially Josh Simpson’s version of the Venetian technique that imitates the natural stone chalcedony. The key, as Josh concluded, is that its success does not depend solely on the glass formula or the furnace temperature. Even today, he cannot predict exactly how the colors will behave or whether the entire concept will succeed, yet he is delighted to be approaching the perfect formula that produces beautifully luminous glass.
Corona vases with thicker walls are also the result of a collaboration with German artist Gabriele Küstner. She occasionally visits Josh and brings her expertise in the original cutting and grinding technique, which alters the texture of the Corona vases. The result is collaborative glass masterpieces – the “Gabi Vases” – whose extraordinary colors are further enhanced by her skillful polishing, giving them a uniquely striking appearance.
Josh is well acquainted with many artists in the U.S. and internationally. He has served as president of the Glass Art Society, founded the Craft Emergency Relief Fund – an organization similar to the Red Cross for American artists – serves on the board of the American Craft Council, and has been a fellow of the Corning Museum of Glass since 2005. He also owns a gallery in Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts, where he has lived and worked since 1976. The gallery showcases and sells works by more than 90 local artists from western Massachusetts and features the largest selection of Josh’s works.
Džoš često kombinuje svoje dobro izvedene ideje, originalne materijale i tehnike. Tako mnogo njegovih vaza i činija ima lice “Novi Meksiko”, a naličje “Korona”, ili obrnuto. Slično tome, „Naseljene vaze“ su primena idejnih i tehničkih rešenja „Naseljenih planeta“ na funkcionalnu formu. Konačno, pošto stalno eksperimentiše, ima i radova koji mu se ne mogu lako pripisati jer nisu ni „staklo Novi Meksiko“ niti „Tektitno staklo“ ili „Korona staklo“.
Even today, Josh continues to make the smaller objects that launched his career in the early 1970s and provided the financial means for experimentation and non-commercial work. These include glasses, pendants, Christmas ornaments, and perfume bottles. He especially returned to these pieces during the Covid-19 pandemic, when he was once again alone in the studio, without the collaborators needed for the more complex works for which he is now best known.
He often makes his own tools, constructs and repairs his glass furnaces, and creates everything else he needs for his work—he breathes with glass. The studio where he has worked since 1976 was built in a former creamery in the house where he has lived ever since. He remains inspired by the beauty of the night sky, beyond which lies the vast universe that he imagines and brings to life in his work.
Reference
- Josh Simpson Glass, vebsajt ateljea Džoša Simpsona
- joshsimpson, Instagram profil ateljea Džoša Simpsona
- @SimpsonMegaplanet, YouTube kanal
- Corning Museum of Glass, vebsajt
- @corningmuseumofglass, YouTube kanal
- Hamilton College (2006) Corning Museum of Glass Unveils Josh Simpson ’72 Megaplanet, hamilton. edu (27. 05. 2024.)
This text is an adaptation of the work published under the title: Jovičić, S., Milojković, I. (2025) Josh Simpson: The Universe in Glass in: Mikić, H. (ed.) Glass: Heritage, Art, Creative Economy, Technology, Paraćin : Belgrade: Institute for Creative Entrepreneurship and Innovation and Foundation for the Development of Economic Science. ISBN 978-86-88981-21-7.
It is the result of work carried out within the project “Preliminary Technical Assessment for the Protection, Preservation, and Revitalization of Glassmaking in Paraćin,” implemented by the Institute for Creative Entrepreneurship and Innovation, the Republic Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments, FREN, and the Corning Museum of Glass. The opinions, findings, and conclusions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the United States Embassy.
