Glass Artists Gallery | Ed Pennebaker Artists of the Month

September 2003

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Glass Artists Gallery Featured Artist

Ed Pennebaker

Glass Artists Gallery Featured Artist Ed Pennebaker On a mountaintop outside Osage, Arkansas lives Ed Pennebaker, one of Glass Artists Gallery’s multi-talented artists. Even if you’ve never seen his gifted glasswork, the home he has built for himself is clearly the work of a creative. Simple-yet-artistic accents like his garden gate, woven from vines and branches and adorned with whimsical bobbles, make his home environment more like an enchanted land.

A modest man, Pennebaker isn’t likely to mention that his glasswork was featured in the 1993 "White House Collection of American Crafts." The collection has since traveled to the Smithsonian Institution and other museums nationwide.

Pennebaker was also named one of Early American Homes magazine's "Best Traditional Craftsmen" for his work with traditional tools and techniques of Early America. Pennebaker has retained this honor for the past 11 years.

As a child, Pennebaker loved to draw. He expanded his skills to include airbrush designs and oil and paper creations. Photography followed and his artistic talents knew no boundary.

Glass Artists Gallery Featured Artist Ed Pennebaker Pennebaker earned his Masters Degree in Art at Emporia State University in Kansas majoring in printmaking with an emphasis on silkscreen design. It wasn't until he was involved with an "Artist-in-the-Schools" program that Pennebaker learned to work with glass.

"I began making glass with the high school art instructor in Liberal, Kansas in 1980," Pennebaker recalls. "It began as a past time since he only ran the furnace during winter weekends. But it got me interested and I chanced upon a job in Ohio at a historic village that I visited while on a motorcycle trip in 1983."

Pennebaker works year-round in his studio. "I stay home in the winter to build up inventory,” he explains. “The furnace gets shut down in the summer but I still have plenty of other work to do." Packing orders, rebuilding equipment, organizing materials, and thousands of other thankless tasks get accomplished during this time.

Glass Artists Gallery Featured Artist Ed Pennebaker Pennebaker prefers to say he's a "glassmaker" instead of a "glassblower." The term glassblower has been used and misused so much that it carries very little specific meaning. "Most people associate the term glassblower with a person who melts rods of pre-made glass to form items working at a torch," he elaborates. "The specific title for that type of glassworker is 'lampworker.' Lampworking is a glass technique that is very different from what I do. It requires a different set of skills."

Pennebaker has created several projects since joining the community of artists at Glass Artists Gallery in November of 2002. To view more of Pennebaker’s Chandelier’s, Sconces and Pendants, click here.

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