Meet the Maker Crafting Otherworldly Glass Lighting
Artist and designer Lorin Silverman’s recent solo show at Donzella featured 16 original works, nine new pieces made specifically for the installation
A native New Yorker, designer Lorin Silverman started blowing glass at Brooklyn studio UrbanGlass at an age when most would be more focused on skateboards and video games.
“I first got an introduction at summer camp,” recalls Silverman, who started experimenting with glass at just 12 years old. Enrolling at Connecticut arts program Buck’s Rock exposed him to bronze casting and glass blowing, as well as a camp counselor from Alfred University, where he later pursued his education in glass and metalwork.
As a student at New York’s famed Laguardia High School, he followed other connections from Buck’s Rock to apprentice at UrbanGlass, where he maintains his studio today. “It was fun, it was hot, it was fast, it was enticing,” he says.
Initially, Silverman started making vases, pieces in pinstripe cane work, and goblets, the latter a dexterity challenge in glassmaking. “It’s thin, it’s small, so there are a lot of techniques that have to be done very fast,” he says.
Studying with maestros of Murano taught him about understanding the basics before adding the embellishments. “If you’re making wineglasses, you have to make the ‘thing’ first before you add the froufrou,” he says of the memorable lesson. “Those bits can hide things, but can you make it right.”
Over time, he developed his own aesthetic, aiming to formulate a style he hadn’t seen before. Joining Donzella opened up his practice, allowing Silverman to focus on the creative side of the business. At the gallery, he displayed hypnotic works with Japanese foil and ball bearings, adding ethereal, artisanal effects. His Moon series found a receptive audience and sparked commissions for leading designers like William T. Georgis, Brian McCarthy, and Jamie Drake.
“My desire has been to engage a viewer always and create something that maybe isn’t a historical craft visual so people are interested more,” he says. To that effect, Silverman produced dazzling works seen in his recent solo show at Donzella, “Reflections,” that translate familiar forms, like a branching chandelier, but with considered departures. One such example, Moon Pistil features lapis blue egg shape domes with intentional, randomly inserted niches, “like a bug ate some of the leaf,” he says of the forms. The recesses give a better look into the starry platinum lining of the cups, as well as what Silverman calls a morel, a lighting diffuser that’s dimpled and thick. “Those entry points give you a desire to walk around a piece and keep exploring it.”
For the show, Silverman also introduced morels in mauve and coral alongside forms in transparent colors and experimented with sandblasting to give his works a new level of depth. “I used to not experiment a lot with color but this show really pushed that,” he says. Another standout introduction was the Waterfall chandelier, which translated his technique for producing morels to create large textured and sandblasted platters in various sherbet shades that cascade from a trio of black metal rods. “Because they have those thick ridges of glass,” he says, “they get really beautiful optical play.”