Paul J. Stankard: Homage to Nature

Paul J. Stankard: Homage to Nature by Dietz, Ulysses Grant. hardcover edition. ISBN: 9780810944732.

Since childhood, nature has always been important to Paul Stankard, and now as the worlds leading glass paperweight artist, this interest has become the defining signature of his work. Flowers such as roses, lilacs, and orchids are depicted as are a host of fantasy flowers that the artist creates in his studio, located in southern New Jersey. To look at a Stankard paperweight is to be momentarily fooled into believing that the artist has preserved a living flower in glass, when, in fact, he has created one entirely from spun filaments. Words, too, play a role, again reinforcing natural processes. Here the artist creates mosaic word canes, spelling out words like seed, wet, and scent, to name a few, which he then embeds in his floral creations. A more complex application of Stankards paperweight skill is the formation of what the artist calls botanicals, which are upright cloistered glass objects, sometimes in diptych and triptych formations. In Paul Stankard: Homage to Nature, decorative arts curator Ulysses Grant Dietz writes with ease and affection about this gregarious, immensely talented artist. More than 180 photographs by fine arts photographer John Bigelow Taylor display close to 200 paperweights and botanicals made by Paul Stankard. Also included are photographs showing the actual preparation and assembly of the flowers, root people, and insects encased in glass. No other glass art book has ever shown a glass artists process of creation as it is depicted here.