Corning Museum of Glass

Chris Rochelle enjoys the constant, steady focus that forming glass demands. A common thread in his work is creating tight forms with clean edges and lines, which he was trained to do throughout his time as a production glassmaker. With a love for sculpture, he finds Venetian-style goblet-making provides a great platform to bring those avenues together: forming thin bubbles into nice shapes and joining them together with sculpted components. "In much of my artwork, I find myself attempting to make order out of chaos, like taking a snapshot of something that is in constant change,” said Rochelle. “With glass, I thrive on the constant attention it demands to push the boundary between fluid and solid state."

Rochelle’s path as a glass artist traces back to Hartwick College, where he got his first taste of working glass while earning a degree in sculpture. After graduating in 1999, he apprenticed in a glass studio in Western Massachusetts. He spent the next 10 years in production glassmaking, including several years at the Steuben Glass Factory in Corning, N.Y. In 2009, Rochelle joined the team at The Corning Museum of Glass where he traveled extensively with the Hot Glass at Sea Program and numerous outreach engagements, including GlassLab, where he worked closely with designers from all over the world to prototype unique objects in glass.

The Museum takes on a variety of specialty glassmaking projects on a regular basis, which allows Rochelle to work alongside and learn from world-class artists. “Our team also supports the collections at the Museum with live glassmaking demonstrations, helping to give visitors a deeper understanding about the material,” said Rochelle. “Being here has allowed me to grow not just as an artist, but an educator as well.”