Michael E. Taylor (b. 1944)

An accomplished ceramicist and glass artist, Michael E. Taylor turned to different techniques to produce glass constructions in the 1980s. He cuts, laminates and polishes quarter- and half-inch machine-made glass, transforming flat sheets into sculptural forms that reference vessels and the history of glass and ceramics. Synoptic Torsion 21 (1991) incorporates multiple colors, dynamic planes, and an impressive scale that entices the viewer to circle the work for its shifting visual effects.

As an educator, Taylor has taught all over the world: in Japan, Sweden, Holland, Mexico, Korea, and across the United States. He was head of the Glass Department at Rochester Institute of Technology’s College of Imaging Arts and Sciences in New York for twenty years. From 2005 to 2013, he was an invited professor at the Universidade Nova de Lisboa, in Portugal. Taylor also writes poetry and texts about physics and his work in cold-worked glass. The inclusion of color in his works induces viewers to interact with his sculptures in the round, as with his Synoptic TorsionSeries, that was inspired by his work in Sweden, made possible by Fulbright and Scandinavian grants. —NW