The Museum of American Glass at Wheaton Village honors the extraordinary work of the undisputed master of floral glass paperweights in the exhibition, Paul Stankard: A Floating World, opening November 20, 2004. It continues through March 20, 2005. This is the first stop on a national tour organized and circulated by the Museum of Arts & Design in New York, NY.

The New York Daily News (June 4, 2004) calls Stankard a glass art “magician.” Museums New York calls his work “amazing” and “beautiful.”

This exhibition focuses on Stankard’s interpretation of nature, and features approximately 68 pieces of sculptural glass “Botanicals” and paperweights spanning his 40-year career, including early experimental works from the 1960s and his most recent work, never before exhibited.

“In Stankard’s world-renowned glass art, nature is crystallized,” says David Revere McFadden, chief curator of the Museum of Arts & Design. “With amazing technical skill, the artist creates flowers and insects that rival the perfection and diversity of nature by melting and manipulating colored glass rods in the ‘lampworking’ process, and then encasing them in glass crystal. The magnifying effect of the crystal brings out every intimate detail, from the fuzz on the inside of a petal to the fine sheen on a dragonfly’s wing, demonstrating Stankard’s acute powers of observation and exceptional artistic sense.”

"Paul's deeply felt relationship with nature can be felt in every one of these exceptional works.  The intensity and intimacy of his floating worlds creates a magical aura that brings the viewer in close contact with the artist's eye, hand and heart."

Stankard’s work also speaks to universal themes. His deep connection with nature—its cycles and patterns, its spiritual and mysterious side—has led to the addition of small elements that subtly illustrate his philosophy. In his paperweights, the careful observer gradually notices the miniscule words and tiny figures entangled among the plant roots that symbolize for the artist the vital forces that flow through all living things. The beauty and intimacy of his creations have made him enormously popular across a wide spectrum of glass enthusiasts, sought after by collectors and praised by critics.

Stankard’s glass artistry stems from many rich traditions. The French firms Baccarat, St. Louis, and Clichy began making paperweights in the mid-19th century, and included among their designs elegantly stylized flowers and insects that appealed to the Victorian love of botany and gardening. This interest in botany was similarly responsible for the scientific glass creations of the Blaschka father-and-son team, whose astonishingly lifelike flowers were created for botany students at Harvard in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Stankard combines these traditions of excellence: his works are assembled with the grace of the French masters, the realism of the Blaschkas’ scientific studies, and Stankard’s own unique vision that married craft and art in a single work. In his glass sculptures, he strives for “organic credibility,” constantly experimenting to find the correct colors or special techniques to create forms. At the same time, he has taken his work to a completely new level, capturing the beauty of flowers with an artist’s sensibility and a poet’s awareness of a deeper meaning.

As a child Paul Stankard was fascinated by the wildlife beyond the edge of his parent’s backyard in North Attleboro, Massachusetts. His love of nature stayed with him after the family’s move to southern New Jersey, where he studied glassmaking at a local technical institute. He graduated and began to work in industry, making glass for laboratories.

In his free time, Stankard’s interest in the technical side of glassmaking led at first to his creation of miniature glass animals. He befriended the famous paperweight maker Frank Whittemore in the early 1960s, and at the same time became interested in the antique French paperweights of Baccarat and Clichy.  In his free time, he began to explore the technical process, teaching himself skills that had remained secrets for a century. As his talents developed, his popularity grew, allowing him to devote himself fully to his passion.

Stankard continued to experiment, drawing inspiration from the Pine Barrens woodlands close to his home. He departed from the stylization of his French models in his use of wildflowers, and his more realistic depictions of plants and insects. In the 1980s, he began a format he called “Botanicals” in which he departed from the semi-spherical form of traditional paperweights into a block that allowed the figures inside to be viewed from all sides, setting them as a sculptural presence. His interest in the metaphysical connection between humans and nature led to the addition of “root people,” small forms based on anthropomorphic illustrations in medieval herbal books, that appeared intertwined in the roots of his plants. He also began to add small words, such as “wet,” “pollen,” and “decay,” in order to suggest the life cycle of all growing things.

This exhibition looks at the range of Stankard's work, from his first round floral paperweights to his most recent Assemblages, never before exhibited. The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalog, 48 pages long, with 40 full-color illustrations of Stankard’s works. In addition to a foreword by MAD Director Holly Hotchner, the catalog will include scholarly essays by MAD Chief Curator David McFadden and Assistant Curator Jennifer Scanlan, as well as a chronology of Stankard's remarkable career.

Paul Stankard: Northern Trust has generously sponsored A Floating World. Additional exhibition support was provided by the Art Alliance for Contemporary Glass. The exhibition catalogue was made possible with support from the devoted friends of Paul Stankard.