Optic Art

Jack Storms Turns Big Glass Blocks Into Works Of Incredible Art Worth Thousands



It’s not every day that an athlete crosses over into the world of fine arts, but a man from New Hampshire did just that. Jack Storms discovered his passions late in life when he discovered contemporary art. At the age of 30, he graduated from Plymouth State University with a degree in art with a primary focus on studio production. During his junior year of college, he stumbled upon what would eventually become his legacy: the studio of a glass artist near his school. The artist was producing a phenomenally rare style of art with glass by combining lead crystal and dichroic glass. To do this, the artist used a cold-glass process, which required several weeks to produce even one piece of completed glass.

Jack spent his time learning everything he could about the craft by working side by side with the artisan for more than a year. The process is intense and physically challenging, so it’s a good thing Jack is an athlete. After learning everything he could about the craft, he was a strong enough artist to branch out in 2004 to open his own studio, Storm Works Studios. There are only a handful of artists in the world who use this technique. One of the first things he did was invent and design a cold-working lathe that allowed him the ability to sculpt shapes and turn glass with curves and details like can be produced if using wood.

Jack incorporated the theory of Fibonacci, a great mathematician who specialized in understanding natural math in nature. In other words, Fibonacci sequences can be found everywhere you look in nature, from the scales of a pineapple’s skin to the repetition florets of a flower.

Jack draws inspiration, he says, from both his mind and his heart when he strives to conceive his beautiful designs. Watch this video below of Jack demonstrating this fascinating process of creating fine art out of a cold, hard piece of glass.