Studio Glass Pioneers Joey Kirkpatrick and Flora C. Mace: Inventing Processes to Realize Ideas

Studio Glass Pioneers Joey Kirkpatrick and Flora C. Mace: Inventing Processes to Realize Ideas

May 29, 2026 · 1h 31m · Season 11 · Episode 11

About this episode

Joey Kirkpatrick and Flora C. Mace discuss their artistic journey and innovative glasswork.

Joey Kirkpatrick and Flora C. Mace consistently invite us to enter a meditative state. Whatever the medium, each piece seems to raise more questions than provide answers. The artists, respected for their innovative work, have concluded the series for which they are most known, large-scale blown glass fruit and vegetable forms. Their subsequent work includes life-size figurative wood and glass sculptures as well as outdoor bronze installations and glass work that features blown vessels and cast panels with illustrations of the 'first facts' of bird identification realized through applied glass powder drawings. Most recently, the artists have been working on their Botanicals , a body of work that preserves real flowers in composite and glass. Kirkpatrick and Mace have worked collaboratively for the past 47 years after meeting at the Pilchuck Glass School in 1979. The artists have consistently explored seminal themes: principles of drawing as incorporated into glass, the metaphoric content of human relationship to nature and the appropriation of materials to support a visual idea. They recently installed a large public art project at the Seattle Center in Seattle, Washington…

People in this episode

Host: Shawn Waggoner

Guests: Joey Kirkpatrick, Flora C. Mace

Topics covered

Keywords

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Pilchuck Glass School

Books & works: Botanicals

Places: Seattle Center, Seattle, Washington

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