 Artist-glassmaker
David Hopman returned to Amador County in California's Sierra Foothills
after many years in the San Francisco Bay Area. A graduate in zoology
from U.C. Davis he was working at Stanford when he focused his artistic
interest on glass. He began studying glassblowing at San Jose State.
In 2000 he decided to devote full time to his art. As a zoologist
and avid scuba diver he is strongly influenced by the natural world.
It inspires the colors and patterns he utilizes in the classic and
freeform blown shapes he creates. Using a state of the art electric
furnace he melts glass from batch. He then adds colors that come
from as far away as New Zealand. Working the glass at over 2100
degrees, he blows and hand shapes the piece to achieve a wide array
of forms. Many of the color patterns he has devised depend on complex
and ever variable interactions between the compounds used in the
different color stocks. His work is presently showing in California,
Ohio and Florida galleries.
|
 Heather
Hopman works in a variety of mediums including lampworked soft glass
beads, ceramics, gourds, metalworking, blown glass and watercolors.
She was born and raised in Amador County.
She has studied under Loren Stump, Robert Mickelson and Vittorio
Constantini. |
