Chris Taylor [MFA 2002, Glass]

Craft Advisory is a studio practice that challenges conventions of art and design. Chris Taylor founded Craft Advisory to create products that are derived from his signature art projects. Taylor aspires to expand his audience, allowing his viewers to indulge in the tactile nature of these objects outside of an art context. Sculptures are transformed into functional objects that can be experienced physically in the everyday. Taylor began close-copying readymade objects such as bubblewrap, styrofoam, soap, plastic, and paper in glass over twenty years ago. These objects combine his interests in subversion, irony and humor with beauty, elegance, and a reverence for the tradition of glassmaking. Craft Advisory’s designs exhibit formal properties of fluidity, buoyancy, and movement within a static object. Through the applications of glassware, lighting, and functional objects, Taylor’s work transforms the daily conventional experience with things into a sculptural and performative art interaction. Craft Advisory also works in collaboration with other artists, designers, and colleagues to investigate and transcend the material possibilities of contemporary design in glass and other materials.