Paintings by dan gaumer

april 12th - May 9th
*Gallery opening party: sunday, april 14th 1-4pM

Dan’s artistic career began with a tube of lipstick on his mother’s bedroom wall. Off he went to art classes at the local church. At the age of seven, Dan won a National Humane Society poster contest. He has been drawing, painting and creating ever since. Dan took a glassblowing class in his senior year at Philadelphia College of Art.

 

Through Professor Roland Jahn, Dan gained entrance to the world of glass blowing, providing him with the opportunity to meet and work with fellow artists. Dan’s work over the last 35 years has encompassed a focus on glass blowing as well as painting. Since 1994, Gaumer has been intrigued with the pursuit of combining blown glass with pate de verre. This is a complicated process in which crushed glass is packed into a refractory mold and melted at high temperatures. He developed a process in which pate de verre images can be applied to the vessel with a “bit” of molten glass. The result is a composite of great beauty and original design. The image designs are fist sculpted in clay, from which a plaster and silica mold is made. The mold is then filled with colored crushed glass, called “frit”, and fired in a kiln at temperatures reaching 1600 degrees. After the images are annealed and cooled, they are cleaned and prepared for attachment to the vessel. Dan’s techniques have produced glass work that demonstrates his passion for the glass medium and his love for nature and the environment.

 

Currently, Dan is focusing on painting. His preference is a dry brush technique with acrylic on canvas and wood. He can often be seen traveling through picturesque areas in Pennsylvania, photographing potential scenes for his next work. Dan considers painting to be much like a novel and enjoys seeing it unfold, as he hopes observers will find their own story related in his work.