Note: Glass chair Clifford Rainey is on sabbatical until fall 2013.
About Pamina Traylor
Though I graduated with an undergraduate degree in mathematics from Bryn Mawr College, most semesters I took an art class. I found that working with my hands added a physical component to the intellectual creative process posed by advanced mathematics.
While enrolled as an MBA candidate at San Francisco State University, I stumbled upon the art glass program and signed up for my first glass course the next day. The sudden interest turned into passion as I traded a planned career in business for an alternative life as an artist.
On a new path in education, I earned my MFA from the Rochester Institute of Technology and completed additional studies at the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts and the Pilchuck Glass School with Maestro Lino Tagliapietra, among others.
Maestro Tagliapietra instilled in me an incredible reverence and love for glass, which I strive to pass on. I feel privileged to work with a material as enchanting as glass and to share that enthusiasm with my students.
For eight years I served as a board member of the Glass Art Society, the international organization for the field of glass art. Participating on the board provided service to the broader community and kept me in touch with a wide spectrum of international glass artists.
The glass community is especially close as a result of the collaborative nature of working with the medium. This connection allows me to keep abreast of new technologies, hear about opportunities for students, and grow as an artist and educator.
Work
Much of my current work combines glass and other materials, with some sculptures using glass to magnify and distort text and photographic images to convey how ideas are distorted when we communicate with each other . . . how what you say is different from what is heard.
The ambiguity of language is a common theme in my work.
In 2003, spurred by an interest in slow food, my partner and I began cultivating an urban garden, growing a large percentage of the food we eat. In fall of 2007, I served as a guest teacher at the Osaka University of Art, Japan.
Being of Japanese descent, I took the opportunity to explore my heritage and experience Japanese culture firsthand. My new work reflects both my time in Japan and an interest in how our food and agriculture choices affect the rest of the world.
Collaboration
CCA faculty, staff, and students outside the Glass Program have the chance to propose a project and collaborate with an experienced glass artist to complete it. The Glass Studio hosts a weekly Sandcasting Night and Gaffer’s Slot (scheduled glassblowing by advanced glassblowers), which give others who are not currently enrolled in a Glass course the opportunity to use the Glass Studio.
This spring we will host students from Osaka University of Art (OUA) who will participate in the “Collaboration and Innovation” program that represents a mingling of Western and Eastern influences.
This cross-cultural collaborative workshop between students from CCA and OUA will feature student lectures, joint work, and fieldtrips to galleries and studios.
Glass Faculty
Our Glass faculty members are dedicated teachers and mentors with diverse approaches to glass, creating work that spans the range of figurative to abstract and design work to large-scale public commissions.
All our instructors believe in the importance of sharing their passion and expertise with our students.