MICHAEL SCHEINER

risd connection: BFA in Sculpture, 1980

medium: mixed media glass sculpture

special skills: Ditching glass dogma – it should be smooth, it should be clear, it should sparkle – Scheiner is a natural expressionist drawn to the dark side of glass. By charring, puncturing, coiling, wrapping glass in wire, reworking it in resin, suspending it from ropes, he plunders the popular notion of its pristine purity.

breaking in: Since his first encounter with the medium as a teenager at a Maine summer camp, Scheiner has built a reputation as an ardent rule-breaker, intent on pulling off the masks and “putting on a sharp edge.” His radical response to over-refinement of the medium – brutal, abstract forms recalling the New York tradition of the ‘50s and ‘60s – distanced Post-modernists but dazzled Washington, DC gallery owner Ann O’Brien, who gave Scheiner his first major show in 1989. “I had no track record,” he points out. “She had a lot of integrity and instinct, and she believed in me. It was a very fortunate combination.” He sold four pieces from the show – three to the Smithsonian Institution and one to the Corning Museum of Glass.

the road to risd: “Teaching was a natural thing for me to fall into,” says the Philadelphia-born glass artist, who has done everything from working as the RISD Glass Department tech in 1983 to serving as its acting department head in 1996. Because he finds the ultimate artistic reward, and statement, in the process itself – “bending, casting, fusing, fabricating, I love it all” – his roles as artist and educator constantly overlap.

making it: “The most important thing for an artist is doing his work,” says Scheiner, who has shown in more than 50 solo and group exhibitions in the US and abroad, and will be featured in the upcoming book, Contemporary Art from Urban Glass. A flow of international grants, lectures, artist residencies and invitational workshops have proven one pleasant point over the years: “the glass world is pretty small.” Following glass around the globe had led to glassware design for Dansk International and fabrications for Jeff Koons, Maya Lin, Kiki Smith, Sherry Levine and Dakota Jackson. These experiences have provided a “wider vocabulary for my own work,” he says.

when he’s not teaching, he’s likely to be: … in the urban mill village of Central Falls, RI, putting the finishing touches on his 1880s parish hall/studio… tackling his Spanish homework… packing for a trip to Bogotá…

discoveries: (1) “Working in glass gets a lot harder and a lot better at the same time.” (2) On getting ahead in glass: “I try to make my career about what I do instead of fitting what I do into a career – I’ve found if you’re sincere and focused on the work the recognition will come.” (3) “I create the work; the viewer creates his or her own meaning. If the viewer is engaged, I’ve succeeded.”

education
Ohio State University, MFA in Sculpture/Glass, 1982
RISD, BFA in Sculpture, 1980
European Honors Program, 1979, Rome, Italy

awards
Fulbright Senior Scholar Fellowship, Universidad de Antioquia, Colombia, 1999
Urban Glass Award for Innovative Use of Glass in Sculpture, 1999
Corning Museum of Glass, Rakow Commission, 1998
Louis Comfort Tiffany Biennial Competition Award, 1993
National Endowment for the Arts, Artist Fellowship, 1986
Ford Foundation Travel Grant, Murano, Italy, 1980