BIOGRAPHY
Carrie Gustafson's joyful aesthetic is a quest for lightness and luminosity radiating through her colorful, bold modernist glass.

Her intricate patterns are inspired by the natural world. Technique: on the surface, Gustafson applies an intricate web of stencils on the top layer of 'flash glass.' Next, sandblasting through to a second, translucent under-layer reveals a matrix of light. Experiments in glassblowing while a printmaking major at Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) ignited her signature style of intricate patterns on vibrantly colored, hand-blown glass.

After RISD, Gustafson's BFA in printmaking was followed by studying glass at the Pilchuck Glass School (WA); Penland School of Crafts (NC); The Studio at The Corning Museum of Glass (NY) and at Rosin Studio, on Murano, Venice's historic 'glass island' in Italy.

On a stable foundation of Studio Glass – vessels and lighting- her career has gained credibility from national exhibitions, specifically: in 2006, The Bellevue Arts Museum (WA) Studio Glass – Decorative and Functional Objects. Followed in 2007 with an exhibition at The Fuller Craft Museum (MA)– RISD Routes. As well as five Smithsonian Craft Show(s) from 2003 – 2009 – (D.C), where in 2009, she was the recipient of the annual award for "Excellence in Glass" and the catalogue cover featured her vessel.

Since 2008, following a feature in "Best of Boston Home", D Scale Modern – a South end design showroom awarded 2008 "Best of the New"– has promoted her work. Including a feature on NECN's Dream Home. For this new economy (and D Scale) she without compromising aesthetic, or craft, introduced a line of giftable items in clear glass, as glass master Rene Lalique did in 1929.

Commissioned works, by Gustafson, are found in restaurants and private homes.

Collections: Corning Museum of Glass. Private acquisitions include artists Chris Rifkin and Magdalena Campos.

Galleries include: Lori Warner Gallery (CT). Kuivatio Gallery (AZ), North Water Gallery (MA).

STATEMENT
After a decade of making classic vessels with a Venetian-trained glass blower, my palette of colors and pattern language developed. I arrived at the inner light of the vessel by way of breath's imprint - blowing glass - and from sandblasting through the surface of multiple layers of colored "flash glass". This translucent "skin" couldn't have been thinner. Next, slicing vessels in half, I discovered sculptural forms and a new way of working: wall tapestries and sculptures built from interconnected and patterned shards. This direction, built upon a career of making vessels and lighting, returned me to my student days when I used translucent flower petals as if they were stained glass.

My work seeks to honor this lineage; to use the magic and radiance inherent in glass,
to create a visual journal rooted in the spiritual undercurrent, which flows through all matter.