Josh Simpson
The last thing Josh Simpson does before going to bed is walk out to his studio to check the furnaces. Seeing an aurora borealis, or watching a thunderstorm develop down the valley, or just looking up at the sky on a perfect summer night inspires him to translate some of the wonder of the universe into glass. That wonder comes out in his work, not in any purposeful way but slowly. Josh Simpson’s glass creations evolve in such incremental steps that he often does not recognize the natural influences until someone points them out.
Along with the natural world, his motivation comes directly from the material itself. Glass is an alchemic blend of sand and metallic oxides combined with extraordinary, blinding heat. The result is a material that flows and drips like honey. When it's hot, glass is alive. It moves gracefully and inexorably in response to gravity and centrifugal force. It possesses an inner light and transcendent radiant heat that makes it simultaneously one of the most frustrating - and one of the most rewarding - materials to work with. Simpson states “Most of my work reflects a compromise between Artist and glass; the finished piece is the moment in time when we agree”.
Josh Simpson has received many important awards and his work is in prestigious museums and private collections world wide including:
Corning Museum of Glass; Corning, NY
Museum of Fine Arts; Boston, MA
White House Collection of American Crafts, Washington, DC
New Orleans Museum of Art; New Orleans, LA
Royal Ontario Museum; Toronto, Canada
Fundacion Centro Nacional del Vidrio; Segovia, Spain
Mint Museum of Craft + Design; Charlotte, NC
Museum of Arts & Design; New York, NY
Moritex Sphere Museum; Japan
Currier Museum of Art; Manchester, NH
Media General Inc. Corporate Collection; Richmond, VA
Brunnier Art Museum; Ames, IA
Media General Collection; Richmond, VA
Crystalex collection; Novy Bor, Czech Republic
Indianapolis Museum of Art; Indianapolis, IN
Chrysler Museum of Art; Norfolk, VA
Peabody Essex Museum; Salem, MA
Museum of Decorative Arts; Prague, Czech Republic
Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; Washington, DC
The Alcorcón City Museum of Glass Art; Spain
The Museum of Arts and Sciences; Macon, GA
Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College; Hanover, NH
Yale University Art Gallery; New Haven, CT
Fuller Craft Museum; Brockton, MA
Huntsville Museum of Art; Huntsville, AL
Museum Bellerive; Zurich, Switzerland