Artist Kathy Young’s original designs in handblown glass are distinguished by pristine colors and shapes that combine traditional and contemporary influences.

Young designs each piece, using traditional glassblowing techniques that date back to antiquity.  A prolific artist, Kathy creates an array of large and small pieces, mostly vessels, including vases, bowls, perfume vials, paperweights and sculptural pieces.  A technical master of this difficult medium, she is able to create elegant, undecorated pieces that allow simplicity of shape and purity of color to serve as the primary design statement.

Many of her pieces reflect the traditional lines found in furniture, architecture and other influences of her New England home. Some of the vessels, for example, echo the turned wooden legs of 18^th or 19^th Century wooden chairs and tables. 

Most of her pieces are executed in a single transparent or opaque color, which is then encased with a layer of clear crystal for added optical depth and visual brilliance.  She achieves her colors by melting powdered metallic oxides into the molten glass or by rolling powdered glass chips or enamels onto a transparent or translucent bubble of glass.  Many of her large vases and bowls often have a complementary or contrasting thread of opaque glass applied to the lip as a subtle accent. This seemingly simple decoration, called a lip wrap, is the last element added to the piece. If not done perfectly, the lip wrap can result in the loss of a vessel that may have been worked on the pipe for nearly an hour.  any of Kathy’s designs reveal the classical influence of ancient Greek and Roman vessels and amphorae, translated to a contemporary design vocabulary.

Young graduated magna cum laude from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, where she earned Bachelors and Masters Degrees in Fine Arts.  She completed postgraduate work in painting at Virginia Commonwealth University. She worked as an assistant to renowned glass artist Josh Simpson prior to establishing a studio with fellow glass artist Chris Constantin in 1982. Tragically, Chris Constantin died in 2001.  Work by Constantin and Young was featured in numerous articles, including features in House Beautiful; Home Magazine; and Neues Glas (a German publication dedicated to glass art). In 1988 their collaborative work was selected for publication in the Corning Museum’s prestigious New Glass Review 9, (only 100 works are chosen annually from thousands of international submissions).

Kathy Young continues to operate the studio she shared with Chris for two decades. Her work is included in many public and private collections and has been shown in fine galleries, museums and juried exhibitions throughout the United States.