David Goldhagen, Glass Artist
David Goldhagen, glass artist, established his art glass studio on Lake Chatuge in Western North Carolina in 1979.
David’s sculptural forms and massive handblown glass plates are distinguished by his unique style of layering color and form. His painterly approach to art glass marries bold colors to brilliant, clear crystal in a clean, modern style. Every unique piece David makes is slowly cooled, hand polished, signed and dated.
David Goldhagen
David Goldhagen’s sculptural forms and massive handblown glass plates are distinguished by his unique style of layering color and form. His painterly approach to art glass marries bold colors to brilliant, clear crystal in a clean, modern style.
Using traditional glassblowing methods thousands of years old, David Goldhagen creates each piece of art glass at the end of a blowpipe. He works the glass at temperatures in excess of 2000 degrees (F), forming or blowing each piece individually, without the use of molds.
Goldhagen uses wide swirls of brightly colored glass, adding flecks of super-brilliant dichroic glass trapped in clear crystal. He creates a palette that moves from subtle to bold by using bits of colored glass made from various mixtures of metallic oxides and rare earth elements. Silver, cobalt, gold, copper, neodymium and others are stirred into molten glass, resulting in vibrant colors.
The power of Goldhagen’s visual imagery matches the unusual strength and masterful technique required to create his larger pieces. His platters and pods are extremely difficult forms to achieve in handblown glass. Working with 10 to 15 pounds of molten glass at the end of a five-foot blowpipe, Goldhagen begins each plate as a bubble.
He adds various contrasting colors of molten glass and creates the flat forms of the plates and pods by attaching this bubble to a rod, opening and spinning out the form in one continuous movement. Some of these extraordinary pieces measure 40″ in diameter. Every unique piece Goldhagen makes is slowly cooled, hand polished, signed and dated.
Goldhagen earned his bachelor’s degree from Tulane University. In advanced glass studies at Penland School of Crafts, he worked with Richard Ritter and Paul Stankard. At Washington’s renowned Pilchuck Glass Center, he studied with Dale Chihuly, Ann Warf and Klas Moje. His works are in permanent collections of numerous institutions and corporations frequently commission his work.
His exhibition and collection list includes: Coca-Cola, AT&T, Bell South International, Merrill Lynch, The Cerebral Palsy Foundation, Walt Disney World, The North Carolina Museum of History, The Jewish Museum of Philadelphia, Ft. Lauderdale Museum of Art, Fayetteville Museum of Art and the City of Winter Park, Florida Public Library.
David Goldhagen established his art glass studio in 1979. It is located on Lake Chatuge in the mountains of Western North Carolina.
