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Dierk Van Keppel
Rock Cottage Glassworks
"Glass art causes me to wonder at great possibilities. It allows me to communicate the unspoken language we all relate to: beauty, form, color, clarity, opacity, and depth."
Natural chaos inspires Dierk Van Keppel. His work explores the powerful forces found in nature; fire, water, and wind. He discovers insight in things like snowflakes, crystals, bugs, flowers, skeletons, shells, geometry, and origami. Using traditional glassblowing techniques and the labor-intensive overlay process, he is able to convey this type of imagery and also express order and chaos through the different dimensions of the glass.
For Van Keppel, there is great joy in knowing the ancient art of glassblowing. Using steel blowpipes and hand tools perfected by artisans over the past two thousand years, every gather of glass is an exploration in form, color, and artistic expression. In many of his pieces, he uses an overlay process, first blowing two separate glass bubbles and attaching them together. He then pulls one bubble over the side of the other, which creates an intriguing layered effect with beautiful, chaotic texture.
Since 1981, Dierk Van Keppel has been immersed in his passion for art, crafting sophisticated, free-blown pieces with his talented team in his Kansas studio, Rock Cottage Glassworks. Even after all his time, he still walks into his studio every day and feels his soul come alive. His artwork is showcased in numerous museums, galleries, and private collections worldwide.
Natural chaos inspires Dierk Van Keppel. His work explores the powerful forces found in nature; fire, water, and wind. He discovers insight in things like snowflakes, crystals, bugs, flowers, skeletons, shells, geometry, and origami. Using traditional glassblowing techniques and the labor-intensive overlay process, he is able to convey this type of imagery and also express order and chaos through the different dimensions of the glass.
For Van Keppel, there is great joy in knowing the ancient art of glassblowing. Using steel blowpipes and hand tools perfected by artisans over the past two thousand years, every gather of glass is an exploration in form, color, and artistic expression. In many of his pieces, he uses an overlay process, first blowing two separate glass bubbles and attaching them together. He then pulls one bubble over the side of the other, which creates an intriguing layered effect with beautiful, chaotic texture.
Since 1981, Dierk Van Keppel has been immersed in his passion for art, crafting sophisticated, free-blown pieces with his talented team in his Kansas studio, Rock Cottage Glassworks. Even after all his time, he still walks into his studio every day and feels his soul come alive. His artwork is showcased in numerous museums, galleries, and private collections worldwide.
