Artist shares magical elements of working with glass at Vegas’ Cosmopolitan studio
When Brent Sommerhauser took an art class in middle school, the teacher advised him “to find something better to do with my time.”
He followed that advice — until the fateful day Sommerhauser, as a college student, bumped into a glassblower. (And had a large scar on his arm, where some glass had dripped, to prove it.)
Before then, Sommerhauser — like most people — thought of glass as “a practical thing,” he admits, meant for “eyeglasses and windshields.”
When he wandered one day into his university’s glass studio and “saw it being made,” he recalls, “I felt the heat and the fire” while he watched “people taking molten liquid and turning it into things.”
It seemed like magic — and, on that day, Sommerhauser fell forever under its spell.
” ‘How do I take this class?’ ” he remembers asking the professor. ” ‘I’ve never been so excited in my life.’ “
Almost two decades later, Sommerhauser’s still making magic with glass.
And, Wednesday through Sunday evenings at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas’ P3Studio, he’s helping visitors discover a touch of that magic themselves by creating kiln glass tiles through Sept. 13.
Sommerhauser coaches guests as they decorate 3-by-3-inch squares of clear and colored glass, creating patterns with crushed glass granules and toothpick-thin glass straws.
After the designs are complete, the artist places the tiles into one of two portable kilns, where the various glass elements will fuse together after six to eight hours of intense heat.
A sign atop one kiln warns: “DO NOT TOUCH — HOT.” (Much hotter than Vegas-in-summer hot: the kiln’s temperature at the time is a toasty 1,385 degrees, below its 1,480-degree maximum.)
The larger, sculptural pieces Sommerhauser himself makes can require as long as 20 hours in the kiln.
“The thicker a piece of glass is, the longer it requires in the kiln,” he explains.
At P3Studio, “we’ve only got so much time,” he notes, so the P3Studio project “is more of a quick workshop,” where he tries to “distill it down to the least number of steps.”
After visitors create their kiln glass tiles, Sommerhauser posts them on the studio wall — and posts images of them on the Instagram account @P3GlassArt, creating “a big digital quilt.”
The tiles may even find their way into one of Sommerhauser’s own works, he adds, envisioning “a large Gothic rose window.”
Although Sommerhauser, 43, also works in wood and paper, glass remains his favorite medium.
“There’s something about the process of making glass,” he says, citing gravity and centrifugal force as factors, along with the ways various elements interact to give glass color, from selenium (yellow) to copper (turquoise).
Beyond that, “it’s a very physical activity,” requiring “a certain degree of muscle memory,” Sommerhauser observes. “In a way, I developed a certain level of grace and coordination through glassblowing.”
Most of all, however, “time seems to exist in a slightly different way” when he’s working with glass, the artist says.
Not that Sommerhauser ever expected to be an artist at all.
Growing up on a Kansas farm, “there wasn’t much artwork,” he recalls, “but a lot of actual work.”
All that work, however, provided ample opportunity to “be creative with solutions to problems,” Sommerhauser says, “before I knew what creativity was in terms of art.”
Despite his middle school teacher’s dismal assessment of his artistic aptitude, he kept creating in high school, capturing footage for the school’s audio-visual program. In college, he studied elementary education, special education and psychology — until his discovery of glassblowing changed his path.
Ultimately, he earned a master’s degree in fine arts from Ohio State University; since then, Sommerhauser has exhibited in group and solo exhibitions in the U.S. and overseas. (Local shows include exhibits at UNLV’s Donna Beam Fine Art Gallery, the Clark County Government Center and the Michele C. Quinn and Brett Wesley galleries.)
Sommerhauser also taught at several institutions, including UNLV and the Seattle-area Pilchuck Glass School. (The latter was founded by renowned glass artist Dale Chihuly, whose creations include the fanciful glass blossoms hanging from Bellagio’s lobby ceiling.)
Sommerhauser also recently spent two months working on a special project in Murano, Italy, the Venetian lagoon island that’s been a center of glass artistry for more than seven centuries.
Sommerhauser, who moved to Las Vegas in 2006, has a “day” job, working as a carpenter, props technician and spotlight operator for Cirque du Soleil.
Consequently, working on the Strip isn’t a novelty for the artist. But working on his art at P3Studio qualifies as “a very cool thing to be a part of,” he says.
It’s also right in line with past exhibitions he’s put together in “hospital lobbies, abandoned buildings” and other unexpected art showcases.
“There’s something kind of wonderful about that,” Sommerhauser notes.
And while “I don’t think it’s my job to convince people to be an artist,” helping them to create art in the midst of the Las Vegas Strip represents “just another part of the other exciting things that brought them onto this floor of this building.”
For more stories from Carol Cling go to bestoflasvegas.com. Contact her at ccling@reviewjournal.com and follow @CarolSCling on Twitter.
Preview
Who: Brent Sommerhauser
When: 5-10 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday, 6 to 11 p.m. Friday through Sunday, through Sept. 13
Where: P3Studio, The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, 3708 Las Vegas Blvd. South
Admission: Free (702-698-7000, www.cosmopolitanlasvegas.com)
