Josh Simpson - Glass Master!

An entire planet encased in glass...

I'm a big fan of glasswork and one of my favorite glass artists is Josh Simpson. I first discovered his work in the giftshop of the Museum of Fine Arts - Boston (a favorite hangout for me back in undergrad, since BU students get in free!) when I saw some of his large and small planets for sale. Most of his work tends to be these planets. Some are metallic, some inhabited, some potentially inhabited (look for signs of "buildings" on the land masses or "spaceships" in the planet's atmosphere, which is the clear glass surrounding the planet) and they come in varying sizes. My husband bought me a large planet for my birthday last year and I absolutely love it!

He does more than just planets, though, including vases, plates, glass "baskets" and collaborations! My favorite item he has for sale is one of his collaborations with Joyce Roessler. It's a portal into an underwater scene, and you know how much I looooove glass underwater scenes!

I looooooove it! The fish, the anemones, the iridescent trail left by a guppy swimming by, the rocky exterior! Fabulous!

The exterior of the portal is beautifully craggy and dark, highlighting the bright scene within!

And here's a close up of the fish! Divine, no? *Sigh. It's works like this that make me wish that I could do glasswork. So beautiful! So this is on my wishlist of things to buy (once I have over $6000 of disposable income. So yeah, that's probably not going to happen anytime soon). Maybe it's a good thing that I don't own it, since I already spend a little time almost every day looking into my Simpson planet (there's always something new to discover inside it. "Is that a road? An island retreat? Is that an alien boat crossing an alien sea?"). I imagine that I'd spend hours at a time looking into this, getting lost in the glass depths, remembering that I can't breathe underwater!!! *cough, choke, cough!
All photos taken from Josh Simpson's amazing website!