About
Craig Merriman's work was selected for Corning Museum of Glass's New Glass Review 39. His process is profiled in academic scholarship on the history of cameo glass.
A photographer's eye
Many of the images in the glass began as the artist's own photographs, some taken decades before the glass existed: a portrait of Laurie Gospodinovich on 35 mm colour transparency in 1978, and the figures of Abby and Thia, photographed in 1996 during an outdoor portraiture session with Eikoh Hosoe at Anderson Ranch. Before glass, he worked in hand-coloured analog photography in the 1990s. See the photographs.
Into glass
The first cameo piece came in 2014, made from the Abby & Thia photograph. A year later, Rose confirmed that a photograph could live in glass as tone and depth rather than as a surface print. The work now spans portraits, figures, places and textures, and includes a collaboration with Riitta Ikonen and Karoline Hjorth on their series Eyes as Big as Plates.
To make the work possible he built a measured library of glass colour and his own software for designing molds. He also developed and named Lithovitrum, a two-firing method for photographic glass. Read about the process.
Giving, not selling
The artist does not sell his work. Over nine years he has donated pieces to a benefit auction for glass education. More about giving.