A striking collection of red handblown art glass vases now on display in a NYC couple’s home.(above)
Today I got another cryptic but fruitful design-inspired email from New York.
An Artful Collection of Modern Glass Vases
This time, the abbreviated communique was not from the usual source of encoded electronic messages from NYC, my best friend AM. In this instance, the email came from an unlikely source…KP. I say unlikely because KP is a guy who watches sports, plays basketball and says he doesn’t “know anything” about design. Yet, here is the email I received from him at about noon today:
“Vase my aunt picked up at RISD
Designed at the school”
(Note: This is not an excerpt from KP’s email. It is the entire email. No introduction. No explanation. No punctuation. Must give him credit for two things though: 1) Capitalizing letters at what might be considered the beginning of sentences; and, 2) Being thoughtful enough to send me fantastic content for this site. Thank you KP!)
The note came with an attachment. A photo of a beautiful red glass vase with a silver leaf design and a delicate bright blue rim – bold color with a modern silhouette. I was immediately intrigued.
It took me the rest of the day to wrestle the entire story out of KP. Via email, text and phone calls, I finally got the full scoop and more photos by late evening.
Turns out the vases belongs to KP’s aunt and uncle, Janice and Mike. They live in NYC but were traveling to Rhode Island to drop off their son at a summer writing camp at Brown University. During their trip to Providence, Janice and Mike took a slight design detour and headed to the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). There they found this wonderful collection of hand-blown vases.
The vases are crafted by Richard Jones and Mark Lorenzi of Studio Paran, a Madison Wisconsin glass blowing workshop. Jones and Lorenzi, both RISD alums, use traditional techniques to make unique and colorful glass vases and vessels that can serve as decorative accents.
Detail of a silver leaf design embedded into a red glass vessel from Studio Paran. (above)
Janice and Mike from New York City collected these three chic art glass vases on a recent trip to Rhode Island. (above)
Thank you KP, Mike and Janice for sharing your design finds! Love these vases!
Beautiful vases.