David Patchen

David Scott Patchen is an American glass artist who uses the techniques of cane and murrine in an American style. (Cane are colored and patterned glass rods, murrine are patterned cross-sections of glass 'tiles'.) Patchen's work is known^[1] primarily for a combination of complexity and scale in densely patterned glass.^[2] His work is in many private and public collections internationally, featured in many publications and frequently in juried shows such as SOFA (Sculpture, Objects and Functional Art), Chicago, ART Shanghai and ART Palm Beach. His work is shown in galleries in the U.S., Canada and Europe.^[3] Patchen was awarded an artist residency in 2010 in Seto city, Japan where his visit was covered by the local media and included lectures, demonstrations and a show of his work at the Seto City Art Museum.^[4] His work has won awards and is in both private and public collections internationally. Based on Patchen's expertise, his book is part of the permanent collection of Giorgio Cini Foundation's Centro Studi del Vetro (Glass Study Center) library in Venice, Italy and the Rakow Library at the Corning Museum of Glass.

Most significantly, his work was featured in a cover article^[5] in Glass Art Magazine in the Mar/Apr 2016 issue. He has demonstrated publicly including at the Glass Art Society's international conference in 2015 and as Guest Artist at the Corning Museum of Glass in 2017.

Born in New Rochelle, New York, Patchen resides in San Francisco, California. Primarily self-taught since 2001, he works out of Public Glass in San Francisco. Informal education included visits to the studio of Afro Celotto, maestro and former assistant to Lino Tagliapietra in Murano, Italy, and an artistic merit scholarship to the Pilchuck Glass School. Early in his career, Patchen assisted several artists including Afro Celotto and Marvin Lipofsky in creating their work.^[3]

About his work

Patchen's series include forms titled "Resistenza", "Foglio", "Parabola", "Allegro", "Bloom", "Piscine", "Ellipse" and "Spheres" which are created in murrine and/or cane.

Patchen is involved in the glass arts community in San Francisco as Chairman Emeritus of the Board of Directors at Public Glass ^[6] and is a former member of the Board of Directors, Glass Alliance of Northern California.

Gallery

Foglio; Blown glass sculpture by David Patchen
Foglio detail by David Patchen
Resistenza using murrine. Pieces by David Patchen are often over thirty-six inches in height.
Bloom; blown glass sculpture by David Patchen
Bloom sculpture
Foglio
Foglio by David Patchen.
Detail of Patchen's murrine work composed of tens of thousands of threads.
Foglio detail
Parabola
Parabola detail
Foglio
Foglio detail
Foglio (Uranium glass under fluorescent light)
Foglio
Foglio detail
Sphere
Piscine
David Patchen's show at the Seto City Museum of Art, Aichi, Japan.