Jim and Connie Grant create handblown and etched glass vessels, perfume vials and other work in a variety of vivid colors.

The Grants work as collaborators and independent artists to create each piece. Working together they create unique vessels and sculptures, using multiple layers of molten colored and clear glasses on the end of a long steel blowpipe. They use ancient glassmaking techniques, along with many of their own invention. They achieve their distinctive color combinations through use of concentrated formulations of metallic oxides such as gold, silver, cobalt and others, which they blend into the molten glass. Some pieces are fluid in shape and contain trapped air bubble patterns. They work independently on the etched designs.

The Grants have been glassblowing partners since 1972, when they became fascinated by the process of blowing glass. They describe themselves as self-taught.

"We were captivated by the molten state — so fluid and dynamic, demanding intense concentration."

The etching process they use dates back to the 1870s and uses garnet granules under very high pressure to carve away and engrave the glass. When completed, each piece is signed and dated by the artist.

The Grants both earned Bachelor of Fine Arts degrees from the University of California, Berkeley. Intrigued by the emergence of glassblowing for individual artists, they subsequently toured major glass factories and studios in Sweden, Germany, Italy and the U.S.

Their work has been shown worldwide and is included in the permanent collections of the Kansas City Museum of Art, MO; the Byer Museum of the Arts, IL; the Carnegie Cultural Arts Center, CA; the Wheaton Village Museum, NJ; and, in Germany, at the Kusnsthausam Museum, the Glasmuseum Wertheim and the Kestnermuseum. They were commissioned to create work for Star Trek Voyager.

Among the many corporate and private collections in which their work is included are those of Johnson & Johnson; Este Lauder; Heather Locklear; Kirstie Alley and Elton John.