Sachi Yanari-Rizzo, Research Curator
Amber Cowan’s glass work is opulent and overflows with lush foliage and vegetation, suggesting abundance. While the combination of forms is fanciful, like in the museum’s Teacup in Colony Harvest, there is an element of familiarity. Viewers may recognize the distinctive imagery and color of pressed glass patterns from antique stores, their grandparents’ homes, or pieces they inherited. The artist enjoys how her works connect with people, arousing nostalgia and forgotten memories.
Cowan’s discovery of her signature material had serendipitous beginnings. A poor graduate student at Tyler School of Art, she encountered a barrel of cullet, which is the name for postproduction scraps and broken pieces sold from now defunct pressed glass factories.
Cowan reheats discarded glass in a kiln and over a torch and then manipulates it with hand tools by twisting with tweezers, flattening with clamps, and cutting with bonsai sheers. Unsurprisingly, she has been teaching assistants to flameworking masters Lucio Bubacco, Gianni Toso, and Paul Stankard, for whom she specialized in making bees. The glass, given a second life in her hands, results in flowers, leaves, feathers, flowing ribbons, and beads.
Cowan creates imaginative juxtapositions by piecing together her handmade sculptural elements with unaltered, pressed glass fragments in monochromatic dioramas and free-standing sculpture. She often showcases figurines and animals as protagonists in narratives. “In general I am not remelting pieces that are already in a salable form,” Cowan says. “I do however incorporate pieces into my work that I have collected to tell a story, add volume, depth or pattern into the sculptures. I collect pieces that are the same color as the cullet that I am using and search them out.”i Cowan cites her love for Rococo flameworked dioramas from Nevers, France. See for example the Mechanical Glass Theater from the Corning Museum of Glass. Her work also shares a sensibility with women sculptors Petah Coyne, Tara Donovan, and Eva Hesse, whom she admires.
The homogenous color unifies all the disparate parts and tempers the busy composition. From a practical standpoint, focusing one type of colored glass ensures their compatibility during the process. Especially when working with white glass, Cowan sandblasts or acid etches to create a matte finish, reminiscent of porcelain.
Cowan’s works display characteristic pastel colors that speak to an era. Rosaline pink, Crown Tuscan, jadeite, chocolate, and milk white, are colors that fell out of fashion and disappeared as factories closed. Pressed glass’ function as tableware and other decorative objects for the post-WWII home suggest connections with domesticity and hence women. This is further enhanced by pastel colors’ feminine associations. “’When someone looks at my work, there is no question of whether a woman created it,’” explains Cowan. “’The femininity in my work is not something that I use as a political statement. It is just what comes out of me. I can’t imagine having a male leading character in any of my pieces, because, in a sense, they are a self-portrait.’”ii
FWMoA’s example includes teacups with bunches of grapes and leaves that are a hallmark of the Colony Harvest pattern fittingly made by the Indiana Glass Company, founded in Dunkirk, Indiana during the state’s natural gas boom. Sold to the Lancaster Glass Corporation in 1957, Indiana Glass Company began producing the Colony Harvest pattern in opaque white (milk) glass to help meet demand through the 1980s. This popularity was likely due to its availability through S&H Green Stamps, akin to today’s store loyalty programs.
Vintage pressed glass is the perfect medium for Cowan. She loves thrifting and shopping at flea markets where it is plentiful. These days, she receives packages of pressed glass from strangers, who have seen or read about her work. They share personal stories, adding to the richness of her process. Although her choice was initially opportunistic, working with the material encouraged Cowan to research the history and stories of its manufacture, the colors, and the individual objects themselves.
Cowan became fascinated with America’s history prior to the studio glass movement. Pressed glass, developed in the U.S. around 1825-26, was a more affordable alternative to hand cut glass. Molten glass pours into a heated, metal mold, and gets pressed into the patterned mold by a mechanized plunger, to reveal the pattern on the exterior.
Pressed glass was important to the economy in many American cities. In the early 1900s there were over 100 pressed glass factories. In the 1890s, east central Indiana boasted the largest natural gas field in the country, measuring 2,500 square miles. Gas-fired furnaces fueled the success of glass related businesses such as Ball Brothers Glass Manufacturing Company, Indiana Tumbler and Goblet Company, and Kokomo Opalescent Glass, among others.
Cowan’s working process bridges the studio and factory traditions as she uses flameworking, hot sculpting, and glassblowing with antique pressed glass. Her practice harkens back to the early years of the studio glass movement when artists used cullet before glass was made for artists.
It is inevitable that Cowan’s source material will become scarce in the future, and she has begun collecting glass molds at auctions. Cowan has also 3-D scanned vintage pieces to make new molds. Few factories work within this tradition, but this artist is hopeful for a collaboration in the future.
To see more unique glass pieces from our collection, visit the Glass Wing during your next visit to FWMoA!
References:
i Andy Smith, “Amber Cowan Reshapes History with Her Glass Works,” Hi Fructose (4 November 2025), https://hifructose.com/2025/11/04/amber-cowan-reshapes-history-with-her-glass-works/.
ii Cat Woods, “Amber Cowan’s Dioramas of Vintage Glass Will Transport You to Whimsical Worlds,” Smithsonian (3 October 2023), Amber Cowan’s Dioramas of Vintage Glass Will Transport You to Whimsical Worlds.