Featured Work of Art

Callidryas II | Steve Immerman

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This sculptural piece was made in a kiln using several fusing, slumping and polishing techniques to create a unique item of glass art. It is displayed in a custom made metal stand, and is made of both opalescent and transparent glass. It has a textured finish called battuto, which gives the glass the appearance of hammered metal.

Although a native New Yorker, Steve Immerman has lived in the Mid-west for the last 49 years, currently residing in Wisconsin. Immerman has been working in glass for the last 40 years, but exclusively with kilnformed glass for over twenty-five years. Immerman uses glasswork as a respite from his more left brain and stressful career as a general surgeon.

He recognizes many parallels between kilnformed glass and surgery.

“They each involve technical skill and precise planning in preparation for the portion of the process where the elements are left alone to heal (in the case of surgery) or fuse (with kilnformed glass). Both processes require intense knowledge of what is expected to happen, and neither allow much margin for error. Both combine science and art.”

His journey in glass has included classes throughout the US and Canada with recognized kinformed glass artists, as well as extensive personal study and experimentation. He has been a finalist in the ArtsWest Wisconsin show on multiple occasions, and has been a finalist in the Bullseye Glass Company’s annual kiln formed glass competition for emerging artists in 2002, 2004 and 2008. His work has been featured on the cover of Glass Craftsman Magazine in 2005 and again in 2006, and was a regular contributor of articles for that publication from 2006 to 2012. In 2005 he was nominated to be the commissioned artist to supply original artwork for the WI Arts Foundation’s annual “Governor’s Award in Support of the Arts” and for the Sharon Lynn Wilson Center for the Arts (Brookfield, WI) in 2006. In 2013 he was asked to create the Sir Ken Robinson Award for Leadership and Creativity for the National Creativity Network. In 2017 he was voted Second Place Winner “Best Visual Artist” in Volume One’s “Best of the Valley”

These glass compositions are made by assembling strips and sheets of glass into three dimensional assemblies that are subsequently fused together in a kiln, at temperatures around 1500F. The resulting flat glass panel is then ground, sandblasted, polished, and placed back in the kiln for other firings to achieve its final three-dimensional shape.

Depending on the particular piece, the glass Immerman uses may be transparent or opalescent; textured or smooth; glossy or satiny. However the common theme is his use of geometric shapes, and, as one juror described his work, his ”...clean form and patterning.” He successfully juxtaposes wild, chaotic design elements with serene backgrounds and geometric regularity. Immerman does this with repetitions of textures, patterns, colors and shapes, in the form of vessels or sculptures. His work can be found in galleries across the U.S, including Eau Claire, Chicago, Door County, the Florida Gulf Coast, and Dallas, TX.