Featured Artist Jim Loewer

Jim Loewer turn solid glass into liquid and back again, using his creativity to design beautiful and functional pieces of art. Visit his website to see more of his work.

 

 

My work is affordable blown glass made on a torch. Despite my low price point, I hope that the work’s contemporary look makes it at once homey and high end looking. I want the unique quality of the work to make each piece, from ornaments to small vases and tumblers, one of a kind and special for its owner.

 

 

I am currently working on some bigger non functional pieces with the goal of adding a higher end line to my work.

 

 

I want to be able to produce tabletop, kitchen, and gift items, while introducing occasional one-of-a-kind sculptures.

 

 

Because of the durability of borosilicate (pyrex) I am looking to make sculptures with moving parts. I am experimenting with gears and simple machines in glass.

 

 

I am also currently expanding my lessons and experiences for beginners for local people or visitors to the Philadelphia area. These are often team building experiences and are designed more for the uninitiated to allow them to get a feel for the glass melting in the flame than to teach another hippie to take my job.

 

 

I am inspired by the hard streets of Philadelphia and my occasional visits to nature. However, my main inspiration is the medium of borosilicate glass and the process of working it on a torch.

 

 

Although flameworking is arguably the first form of “glassblowing” and is quite old, borosilicate was originally used only in functional applications and its use as art glass is still new and wide open.

 

 

This leaves so much room for pushing the boundaries of the medium, experimenting, and even inventing completely new techniques.

 

 

I also like to slip into a friend’s furnace shop every so often, play around with soft glass, and then come back and experiment with how I can alter those traditional techniques for use on a torch with pyrex.

 

Artist Jim Loewer invites you to follow him on Facebook and Instagram.

 

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