Steve H | Interview
All around Arizona and across the United States headshops and galleries carry beautiful artwork by local glass blower Steve Hulsebos. The colors and patterns in Steve’s projects are eye-catching to say the least. Recently, he has begun to create increasingly complex pieces and pushing his work to a whole new level. Steve H is a Glass Master.
History
Several years ago, before Steve H started his career as a glass artist, he opened a smoke shop with his brother. From there he began to learn his way around the smoking and glass industry. During the growth of their smoke shop Steve and his brother began to work behind the torch making borosilicate smoking accessories to fill the store’s shelves. Several months went by where Steve was honing his craft constantly. He learned how to work with glass from classes at a local art center and a friend who had been blowing glass for a while. After a bit of time the brothers began to see opportunities opening up with distributors to supply production glass pipes on a consistent basis. Since then Steve has been refining his skills and growing his capabilities as a glassblower. He has been a flame worker for 7 years now and has built a name for his dot implosions and other works.
About His Artwork
As he has grown his expertise and refined his techniques Steve H has been steadily cranking out highly detailed work. With every project he completes Steve is constantly pushing himself to improve the quality of his work. Two years after Steve began blowing glass he started to use an implosion technique to make beautiful patterns and images comprised of tiny glass dots and lines. When Steve uses this technique, he spends thirty minutes to eight hours placing small bits of glass directly next to each other. The concept is essentially a glass mosaic that is manipulated to be fully encased in borosilicate. A few of the images that Steve has made from glass include the famous Arizona Sunsets, popular cartoon characters, and well-known film roles. He prefers to focus on implementing a select handful of methods to achieve his style while still growing with every project he completes. Recently Steve has made images ranging from seascapes, to skull and bones, and even Bevis and Butthead. Over the past several months Steve H has begun to incorporate his implosions into functional works more and more. He uses his ultra-intricate dot work in a variety of places that create interesting optical and design effects. The implosions Steve is currently making often contain more than 5,000 individual dots completing the image or pattern.
Take Part in the Art
Steve H fans span the country and include some of the best shops in the United States. There are tons of stores with heady glass collections where anyone can stop by and view some incredible glass art. A respectable portion of the smoke shops that invest in quality glass collections carry Steve H artwork. If you get a chance to see and of Steve’s pieces you will be impressed by the detail, depth, and design of his glass. It is worth making a stop to any gallery near you that carries Steve H because his work always stands out in a case. Arizona shops like Its All Goods, Paraphernalia Boutique, and Just Blaze have some Steve H pieces available to view. Notable shops across the country have carried Steve’s work including Just Another Gallery, Hickory Smoke Shop, and so many more. When getting up close and personal with Steve H glass it is hard not to spend fair amount of time reveling in the meticulous execution that makes up his patterns and images. I highly recommend taking any chance to start delving into heady glass and Steve H artwork. Steve is also frequently a part of shows put on by the best heady galleries in the nation. Keep an eye out for potential upcoming events where you can see glass like you never have before.
Check out more Glass Masters here.
Glass by Steve H