Conjurer Sculpture

Greg Owen is a Washington state based artist and educator. He began blowing glass in 1986 at Pratt Fine Arts Center, and started working for artist Dale Chihuly in 1987, both in Seattle, Washington. After receiving his Bachelor of Fine Arts in Glass from California College of the Arts, Greg moved back to Washington State to work for the Pilchuck Glass School. For the last five years he has worked at Museum of Glass in Tacoma, Washington in Audience Engagement and Education, and as Program Manager for Hot Shop Heroes: Healing with Fire, a series of classes designed to teach soldiers and veterans how to blow glass. In addition to creating his own artworks and wildly popular Instagram videos (@gmanonfire), Greg enjoys teaching yoga, hiking and lots and lots of music. I envision my Masks as ritual objects, to be used as masks have been used since time immemorial: to focus and elevate those aspects of culture and humanity which the world requires more of at the moment. The beauty of masks is that they can conjure different meanings and stories depending on who is looking at them, regardless of culture or epoch. The human face is the most common currency of human recognition. It is the first visual object we as humans learn to recognize, as newborns looking up from our cribs. The practice of fashioning images of the human face is so central to what it means to be human that it is a bit of a stretch to even refer to such creations as "art", rather than attempts to follow the Ancient Greek aphorism to "know thyself". My urge to create the Mask series comes from a desire to take part in humanity's most basic conversation with itself.