Artist of the Month
March 2025
Richard Jolley
With a career that spans over 40 years, Richard Jolley is one of today’s most accomplished glass sculptors. His figurative work uses organic forms to explore the breadth of the human experience. Jolley works out of his studio in Knoxville, TN. He is represented by Hawk Galleries, Columbus, Ohio, where he has a solo exhibition through April 26.
Click each picture for a full photo.
Blue Tint Wren with Dogwoods Aqua; 17.5 x 11 x 4.5 inches; blown and hot formed glass
Crescent Moon Thoughts Golden Moon; 20 x 13.5 x 6 inches; blown and hot formed glass
Crescent; 64 x 22 x 26 inches; bronze
Cobalt Crescent Moon; 20 x 20.5 x 11 inches; blown and hot formed glass
Iridescent Crystal Wren with Silver Leaf (Red); 17 x 10.5 x 4.5 inches; blown and hot formed glass
Circular Regeneration Aqua with Pink Tint; 29.5 x 12.5 x 7 inches; blown and hot formed glass
Dog; 56 x 68 x 33 inches; bronze
World View; 35.5 x 14 x 13.5 inches; blown and hot formed glass
Iridescent Blue Wrens with Dogwoods Figure Eight; 66 x 46 x 5.5 inches; blown and hot formed glass
Richard Jolley
Artist Statement:
It seems as though you wake from a dream one day to realize that you have been involved in a journey with a material and process for over half your life and still there is so much more to discover, uncover, and be covered-up by. One of the joys I have with this expressive material, glass, is that you are making something from nothing.
As with many artists of the 60s and 70s, I sought out non-traditional materials and encountered glass which became my primary medium. The many dualities of nature and materials interest me, and I express this concern in my work by employing a figurative/narrative mode to document our times and environment. There is a classical/modern link in my work just as a glass is a modern material with an ancient history.
About Richard Jolley
Richard Jolley was born in 1952, and moved in his youth to Tennessee. In 1970, he began his studies at Tusculum College in Greenville, TN, studying glass under Michael Taylor. Taylor was then invited to create his next program at George Peabody College in Nashville, now apart of Vanderbilt University, where Jolley later completed his B.F.A. In the fall of that year, Jolley participated in graduate studies at Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina under the instruction of Richard Ritter. Jolley continues this teaching tradition by frequently returning to Penland and through unique programs designed to involve at-risk students in the Knoxville community with professional working artists.
Building and maintaining a glass studio in Knoxville since 1975, Jolley has participated in over 70 solo museum and gallery exhibitions throughout the country as well as Europe and Japan, Australia, Israel, and China. His work has been extensively collected both privately and by public institutions and is found in over 35 public collections and notable establishments including the Carnegie Museum of Art; Corning Museum of Glass; Knoxville Museum of Art; Los Angeles County Museum of Modern Art; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC; and the Frederick Weisman Art Foundation in Los Angeles.
Jolley has additionally been honored for his art through a variety of awards, commissions, and invitational workshops in Tennessee and abroad. In 2007 Jolley was the youngest visual artist to ever receive the Tennessee “Governor’s Distinguished Artist Award” and acknowledged with the 2010 “Individual for Outstanding Accomplishment in the Field” by the Art Alliance for Contemporary Glass.
Click here for an artist's resume.
Acknowledgment of Gallery:
We are grateful to Hawk Galleries, Columbus, Ohio, for providing the Artist of the Month.
Art Alliance for Contemporary Glass is a not-for-profit organization whose mission is to further the development and appreciation of art made from glass.
The Alliance informs collectors, critics and curators by encouraging and supporting museum exhibitions, university glass departments and specialized teaching programs, regional collector groups, visits to private collections, and public seminars.
