THANKS!
I just wanted to make a little spot on the web where I can officially say thanks to friends, family and other artists who have inspired my art in one way or another.

•Inspirational Artists
I have been mostly self taught from experience, but combine that with traveling, suggestions of mentors, the internet, and at least 60 hours a week behind the torch for 3+ years and that's where I am now. The three mentors I had during the first two years were apprentices or students under Clinton at one point in time - Chico, Lee Zeigler, and Justin Wells. Most of my early tubeworked inspiration and striving for constant perfection comes from these three guys. Some other early influences were a pair of brothers named Ryan and Casey. I met them online and they helped me think outside the box with glass immediately, teaching me color blowouts and hollow organic shaping techniques. Erik Anders (for his dichro work and his rattys), Eugene Rain (rattys), Derek McGhee for his Dichro help, JP and JC (for cleanliness), Jeremy Bizzano (for honeycombs), Adam Grafuis (enlightened me on the overlapping dots technique), Jupiter Neilsen for showing me how to mix up my own custom color creations. A big thanks to Robert Mickelsen (see gallery for pictures of me at his Graal class) for teaching me alot about glass control, and for reminding me to try and use techniques to showcase my work instead of using my work to showcase my techniques...something I work on every day.

As far as marbles, I didn't have much interest in making or collecting them even when Tim Keysers gave me a great vortex demo in late '02/early '03 at my shop- It was truly motivating, but what really got me hooked on making marbles like I am now, was AGI 2004. There I watched Erik Anders, Roy (Gremlin Glass), and Gateson all make some 3" marbles. I was intrigued on the whole process, and the size, and in the care they took in making them. During that same week I met so many artists and that showed me so much to do with marbles it's hard to include them all here; although many have been mentioned already. That AGI planted the seed that would eventually grow to be my passion for making marbles and jewelry.

AGI 2005 was just as inspirational, many of the same artists that helped the year before and new fresh faces and ideas too. A big thanks to Andrew Brown for hanging out and showing me as much as he could cram into my brain about coldworking. It is something I am working on right now and he basically answered all my questions and gave me several pointers and ideas to get started with so we'll see over the next few months what that develops into...

The window technique I have been doing lately in my marbles (the WindowScene Series) was inspired by a beautiful hollow vessel piece I saw by an artist named Bearclaw. Micah Evans, a good friend and previous shopmate, and I sat around for probably 3 days talking of variations we could try to innovate off that concept of 'windowing' - after months of messing with ideas, the WindowSceneSeries marbles came about.

•Inspirational Friends and Family
In no particular order; Mom and Dad - Even when I quit college to pursue the passion I aquired for glass in such a short time, you were both behind me. Danny Harmon, long time friend - the only friend who actually has more energy and ambition to get things done than me. Micah Evans for bringing out more of the artist in me. I can never complete the list of all the friends that helped me reach my goals financially - glassblowing in not a cheap hobby/career! So if you bought my glass when you didn't need it so I could afford a new torch or kiln, Thank you!

•Updates
This list will be udated constantly - every time I think of someone that inspired me, that name will go here, for these are my roots in glass. My inspirations. This will help me keep track of it as well as others who are trying to document the borosilicate history.


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