Duncan McClellan
Born in Bayshore, New York on March 21, 1955, Duncan McClellan’s fascination with glass began at age 5, when he visited a glass factory in West Virginia. McClelland never forgot the image of glowing, molten mass being formed by expert craftsman. After successfully working with leather and clay, he eventually had the opportunity to learn to blow glass at a studio in Ybor City, Florida in 1987.
McClellan has studied the creation of larger forms with Fred Kahl and John Brekke, instructors and artists working at the New York Experimental Glass Workshop. He is now working in Sigma Studios, in St. Petersburg Florida where assistance is available for producing larger and more complex forms by providing an extra pair of hands during the blowing and polishing processes.
The focus of McClellan’s work is centered around the techniques of overlay and graal. For overlay work molten glass of concentrated color is picked up on the end of a blowpipe from a large vat oven. This blob of glass forms the center and internal color of the vessel. Then, by blowing into the pipe, a small bubble is created in the center of the glass. Layers or ‘gathers’ of clear glass can then be formed around this first colored bubble. On the end of another pipe, a second color is picked up and heated, adding several gathers of clear glass. This will become the outer skin of the vessel. Both bubbles are worked until they are the desired sizes. Then the bubbles are joined at the ends, the second bubble is cracked off its pipe, and they are heated again until soft. While the glass is pliable, the second bubble is carefully opened, expanded, and turned inside-out around the first bubble. The second color is then on the outside, with a layer of clear glass separating it from the first color on the inside. If the initial process is successful, blowing and shaping the piece is continued using traditional glass blowing techniques. When completed, the piece is annealed in an oven for up to 90 hours to relieve any structural stress created in the glass during the working process. The satisfactory vessels are put through a six stage grinding and polishing process until an uncarved ‘blank’ is produced.
The graal technique begins like the overlay process; however, it is arrested after the first colored bubble is formed. This produces a blank similar in size to an ostrich egg, yet extremely thick. This blank is annealed, carved, then placed back in the oven, and slowly heated to 1050 degrees Fahrenheit. It is then attached to the end of a blowpipe and fire polished. To seal in the imagery, a casing of clear or opaque glass is gathered onto the surface. Traditional glass blowing methods are used to expand the blank to full size and form. Finally, it is annealed for up to 90 hours.
Through the use of these techniques and recognizable icons, McClellan’s work depicts emotions relating to family, personal growth, and the spiritual connections between each of us as souls.
In recent years Duncan McClellan’s art glass has been exhibited extensively throughout Florida, in New York City, Chicago and Denver. It is in the Collections of the Polk Museum of Art, DeLand Museum of Art, Florida Gulf Coast Museum, Morse Museum of American Art, Fondazione Memmo, Rome, Italy, New Orleans Museum of Art, Mobile Arts Museum and the Tampa Museum of Art, as well as many prominent civic, corporate and private collections.
p4A.com acknowledges the Galleria Silecchia in Sarasota, Florida for this Duncan McClellan reference note, www.GalleriaSilecchia.com.