East Bay Open Studios 2013

Barbara Barnett

Barbara has been an artist most of her life but only recently began working in glass. In 2007, she started working with stained glass and moved through kiln formed glass to cast glass after taking a class at The Crucible in Oakland, CA.  Her work reflects the natural world she sees around her, combining her love of nature and a passion for art. Creating a glass sculpture starting with a clay or wax model is always a journey of discovery.  Her geeky side loves the physics of glass, the problem solving, and the complexity of the process.  Her emotional side loves the observation and discovery of the form, the surprise at the outcome, and discovering new aspects of myself through the process.

Website: barbarabarnettglass.com

Peter Kropf

Peter Kropf is fascinated with all forms of fire and its ability to transform. He creates sculptures with a variety of materials, and often seeks to include fire as a focal point. He is always looking for different and interesting ways to share his joy of fire with the community at large. Peter can often be found at The Crucible working as a Senior Studio Manager and setting pyrotechnic effects for Crucible productions. In his spare time, he is known to drag chaos through their IT Department.

Website: practicalfirearts.com

Johanna Neaderhouser

Johanna Neaderhouser has been a woodworker since 2010 having enrolled in the Distance Mastery Program at the Northwest Woodworking Studio. She has recently started teaching woodworking classes at The Crucible.

Rob Nehring

Rob Nehring received his BFA from the University of Milwaukee, Wisconsin in Inter-arts, which included theatre, dance and sculpture. After professionally dancing for 17 years and 18 years in the candy business, he dropped everything to take a class at The Crucible. Driven by the definition of sculpture as “something you back into when looking at a painting,” he strives to produce thought-provoking, yet whimsical work in three dimensions. An accomplished artist, Rob’s sculptures are in galleries and private collections throughout the United States. His sculptures are created from 99% recycled materials. Through found scrap materials, Rob lets the materials dictate what they will become. Rob runs Rusty Noodle Studios, teaches and is the Adult Program Director at The Crucible.

Website: rustynoodlestudios.com

Alexander Smith

Alexander Smith was born into a family of educators and craftsmen in Berkeley. His early artistic development was thoroughly encouraged by his parents with gifts of tools and space to work. Alex attended the UC Santa Cruz where he earned his BA in Sculpture in 2000. It was here with the challenges of academia he began to formalize his skills in metal casting and fabrication processes to demonstrate his ability in expression and form. Alex has instructed the tradition of bronze casting at The Crucible for twelve years. He is an Apprentice and Project Manager for Sculptor Fletcher Benton, where he enlarges Mr. Benton’s designs to monumental size, supervises building and installation of these works. Alex’s castings, paintings and fabricated works are inspired by his travels, love of form, nature and technology havebeen featured at the Sculpturesite Gallery San Francisco, in public projects in Tucson, Arizona and are currently featured at the Shidoni Gallery in New Mexico.

Website: alexandersmith.com

Daniel Stauber

Daniel Stauber began taking glass casting and fusing classes at The Crucible in the winter of 2010/2011, then expanded his interests to glass cold-working, and painting on glass. Despite the long history of glass art, he is mesmerized by the incredible artwork of today’s glass artists. The potential seems limitless.

Glass tames is Daniel Stauber’s natural approach to art in part because he believes of its unique array of physical properties. It is fluid and static, fragile and strong. It reflects, transmits and diffracts light. It has additive and subtractive properties of color mixing and divides light into spectra. It can be opaque, transparent and span the continuum of translucence. Glass also articulates a sense of the ethereal, magical, sublime.

Website: danielstauber.com

Sam Waller

Sam Waller has been working with leather in the Bay Area for six and a half years, where he started in a South San Francisco garage.  He now has studio space at The Crucible in West Oakland, where he teaches classes and practices his art.

Website: wallerleather.tumblr.com

Mary B. White

Mary Bayard White is co-head of the Crucible Glass Department in West Oakland. She is a Bay Area sculptor/arts educator who likes to link art making and environmental issues, addressing issues of water resources, renewable energy, urban habitats for wild birds and affordable housing. She believes in the power of regeneration, transformation and reuse, uses salvage materials in her work, and often works with many varieties of recycled glass, and found metal parts.

Mary has a MFA in Glass and Painting from California College of the Arts. From 1985-2005, she was head of the San Jose State University Glass Program and taught in the School of Art and Design and the Creative Arts Department at San Jose State University. She also has served as a board member and Oakland, CA site coordinator for the Glass Art Society conference, organized the California Glass Exchange in San Jose and currently serves on the board of the Women Environmental Art Directory. She has taught workshops at over fifteen institutions and is in many collections, including the Corning Glass Museum. Her current work includes solar powered bird baths, glass flood level markers, and glass watershed maps.

Website: marywhiteglass.com