Tony Cray

I’m a pyro with a passion for process. Clean lines, refined forms, saturated colors, and sand-carved surfaces comprise the visual elements in my work. Inspired by our patterned world, my intent is to use color, line, texture, and repetition to create a sense of visual rhythm. Negative/positive hand-made patterns, repeating, overlapping, alternating…. balancing their differences into the whole. Compelled by the small successes…. One discovery leads to the next. Working from a 2000+ degree furnace, these pieces are hand-blown. Techniques used include color overlays, cane and murrine mosaics, incalmo joints, and switched axis transfers. Once cooled, they are extensively cold-worked. Surface designs are hand-cut and sand-carved. Responsible for every aspect, I designed, engineered, and constructed the entire studio, and virtually every piece of equiptment I use to make my work. There is no underlying message, my approach to producing is self-seeking. My work–is about the work, it’s about the process, it’s about the work in progress. I aspire to create original, uniquely cohesive, meticulously detailed objects. The rest is about trial and error, patience, persistence, etc., etc., blah, blah, and blah. Continually searching for new ways to leave my mark… each piece inspires the next, one piece at a time.