About the Artist

Warner Whitfield uses the ancient lampwork techniques of glassblowing, sometimes called flamework, a method of making glass objects that dates back thousands of years to the time when glass was worked over an oil burning lamp or flame.

This technique has been used throughout the centuries to make everything from multi-colored glass beads to the delicate and fanciful dragonstem goblets that characterize the Golden Age of Venetian Glass.  Galileo in the 17th century designed scientific instruments made by lampworking or as it is sometimes known, scientific glassblowing.

Warner is inspired in creating his orignal designs by the forms, shapes and textures found in nature.  Many of his designs particulary those involving floral motifs, are reminiscent in feeling of the Art Nouveau pieces created during the Arts & Crafts Movement of the late 19th Century, yet with a cleaner, more contemporary approach.

He creates each piece individually from rods or tubes of clear or colored glass.  He uses borosilicate glass, often opting to work in the difficult area of color which requires far more skill and technical experience than working solely in clear crystal.

Whitfield creates each piece by melting and manipulating glass rods or tubes of various diameters over a gas-oxygen flame.  He also works with specially formulated colored glass rods and shapes the glass at tempuratures in excess of 2800 degrees F.

He began working in glass in 1972 and established his own studio in 1976.  He studied art at the University of Maine and has pursued studies in glass at two of the worlds most renowned schools, The Haystack Craft School, Maine, and The Penland Craft School in North Carolina.  He apprenticed with master glass artist Fritz Bachman from Hamburg, Germany for four years.

Whitfield's work has been shown in galleries and juried exhibitions throughout the United States.