Liquid art: Glass sculpture’s popularity in Las Vegas is crystal clear

Kimberley McGee

Thursday, March 21, 2002 | 8:32 a.m.

There is art in Las Vegas, rising from the city's glitz and glamour.

It exists in the custom-made glass sconces, towering glass sculptures that gleam in the sun and deep-bowled glass sinks that shimmer with color.

Glass art is breaking into the Las Vegas art scene as the medium expands in popularity nationwide.

"Definitely there is a lot more glass art being done in Las Vegas than ever before," said Barbara Domsky, co-owner of Design Effects glass gallery with her husband Larry. "It's everywhere."

The Domskys have crafted a living since 1990 by selling pieces in galleries in Chicago, Philadelphia, Kansas City, Mo., and Las Vegas. They also create pieces for the gift shops at Mandalay Bay and Bellagio as well as custom homes. The couple's custom-made work for a Las Vegas home recently appeared in Trends, a national architectural magazine.

The Domskys' glass-art company is one of many that fill orders daily for such home accessories as custom-light fixtures "We call them light sculptures," Domsky said to 7-foot-tall glass installations. Pieces range from $45 to more than $7,000.

"We have more work than we can keep up with," Domsky said. "People are finally getting glass." As is the case with most modern glass artists, the Domskys' creations are entirely a product of their self-education. They combine 24 years of glass and metal experience to create their glass structures.

"We play a lot in our studio," Barbara Domsky said. "There's so much you can do with glass. It's a liquid art form."

Their studio and commercial glass shop at 3720 W. Oquendo Ave., Suite 300, is filled with sheets, shards and powdered forms of glass.

To create the paintings and sculptures the pre-cut pieces of glass are arranged in layers as a canvas, or placed around molds to form shapes.

To create a brushed-on paint look, Domsky uses powders, which melt in thick, oily-looking lines. To mold a bowl, she first arranges shards or thin reeds in the pattern she prefers.

The flat piece is then placed in a kiln for up to 24 hours and fired at 1,600 degrees.

She removes the piece from the kiln and lets it cool, which can take up to 48 hours.

The slab of patterned glass is then placed over a rounded mold and into another kiln to cook, melting the glass into a bowl shape.

After the process, rivers of silky fire shine in the cooled, colored glass.

"It's a frozen-liquid painting," Domsky said. "The colors flow together but remain individual pieces of glass that change as you walk past it. It's never the same from any direction."

The Domskys prefer the term glass fusion to glass art; it lends more credibility to the work, Barbara Domsky said.

"This isn't just some creation with glass from a Coke bottle," Larry Domsky said. "This is creativity, work."

Seeing colors

The craft of glass art has only recently become well-respected in the art world, said Ann Baxter, a spokeswoman for the International Guild of Glass Artists Inc. in Gross Pointe Park, Mich. The IGGA is an international nonprofit association of artists and craftspeople who work with glass.

"Glass has been around for thousands of years, but we are just now accepting it as art, not just function," Baxter said. "The stigma has been lifted."

The perception that glass is fragile is misguided, Baxter said. Glass has kept sheer winds and severe cold and heat at bay in homes for generations without breaking. Centuries-old stained glass continues to reflect light on visitors to churches and museums in Europe.

"It's much more resilient than people might think," Baxter said.

Famed Seattle glass artist Dale Chihuly brought the art form to the masses.

Such large public installations as Chihuly's glass ceiling at Bellagio as well as glass art galleries around the country are feeding the public's curiosity for glass, Baxter said. Innovative interior designers who steer clients toward the medium are bringing glass art to the home.

Most of the glass artists are self-taught, Baxter said, because it is such a new endeavor in the art world.

"It's not as difficult to play with glass as a medium than people might think," Baxter said. "There are so many choices out there and ranges of color. You can do just about anything."

Homeowners are discovering this, said Terry Cohen, an interior designer with Sydni Jay Associates interior decorating.

"There are so many new things we can do with glass," Cohen said. "It's a happy marriage between function and beauty."

For recent clients in such high-scale digs as Turnberry Place, Cohen has worked with a local glass artist to create room dividers, sculptures and slabs of countertops with thick-bottomed sinks for kitchens and bathrooms.

Clients are curious about using glass, Cohen said, but they have to see it to believe it.

"They just aren't aware how glass can be used," Cohen said. "It adds life to a room. When they see that it has less blockage (visually) than other materials they love it."

That is what prompted local homeowner Marsha Shtulman to use glass art in her home.

"It's translucent, not as dense as any other piece of art," Shtulman said.

The exterior of Shtulman's Spanish Trail home conforms to those that line the gated-community's streets.

But placed in the fan-shaped window near her entrance is a clear glass-and-metal sculpture that allows light into Shtulman's home, delights her artistic senses and doesn't upset her neighbors.

"I wanted something different, something no one else has," Shtulman said. "I wanted to stay within the limits of my (homeowners) association, but I wanted to have art, not just a window treatment. Glass art gave me freedom to do that."

Bright future

Glass artists are clearly becoming popular in Las Vegas, said Leslie Rankin, owner of Glassic Art, 5850 Polaris Ave., Suite 700.

And there's plenty of work for everyone.

"With all the different styles of homes we have here, this is nirvana for a glass artist," Rankin said. "There are so many styles, from Japanese to Old World, that are turning to glass."

That hasn't always been so.

When Rankin moved to Las Vegas 15 years ago, stained glass was the primary glass art used in homes and displayed in art galleries. She created large glass bowls and small pieces at her Henderson home to sell in local galleries.

"I worked out of my garage, which I turned into a gallery, because people still didn't get glass art," Rankin said. "I think they thought of glass as churchy."

But today Rankin's studio buzzes with activity.

Since her appearance on "Modern Masters," a fine-arts and crafts show on the Home and Garden network (Cox cable channel 64) last year, her workload has doubled. She has also been profiled in the "Architect's Source Book," a list of choice artists who have worked with architects.

Rankin collaborates with a team of five glass-art professionals in her studio to create unique glass doors for entryways, bathrooms and patios, glass tables with swirls of color fused into the thick tops and other household objets d'art.

Rankin has recently completed a glass staircase for a client.

"People think glass in their home would be too fragile," Rankin said. "But you could strike it with a hammer and it wouldn't break."

The future looks bright for glass art in Las Vegas, Rankin said. More artists are breaking into glass art and clients are clamoring for more ways to bring glass into their homes.

"There's no end to what we can do," Rankin said. "We are just at the beginning."

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