Rising Stars: Meet April Wagner

Today we’d like to introduce you to April Wagner.  

Hi April, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
I always knew I wanted to be an artist. Even from a young age, I was different from other kids, always messing around trying to make something from nothing, never really fitting in anywhere until I attended Interlochen Arts Academy for high school. Art school focused my creative energy and propelled me into a lifelong career in the arts. It’s not easy to find that thing that makes you jump out of bed in the morning, and many artists struggle to succeed, but I found my raison d’etre working with glass. Making glass has been my passion since 1993. I am deeply in love with it, obsessed you might say. It’s a very intimate, immediate, dynamic art form, full of danger, fragility, adrenaline, and grace. 

After graduating from art school, I started my business, epiphany studios, creating fine art glass and selling it at shows across the country. After traveling for many years, I built up enough capital to build my own studio in Pontiac, MI. Glassblowing requires expensive, elaborate equipment to create. There were lots of fits and starts but I was determined to make my vision a reality, so instead of listening to all the naysayers I dug in and have built a successful and profitable studio, employing eight people. I am as proud of my business as I am of my art. 

My passion for glass is sparked by a never-ending curiosity. I want to know what it would look like if I tried this idea or that color. I never lack for inspiration, I only lack for time. I have so many ideas in my head, I hope to live many years to see them get created. I love working with glass because it is tabula rasa. You bring everything to it. It is what it is, but it is also nothing. It’s clear, it’s amorphous, it’s a blank canvas waiting for my creativity to shape it into something beautiful. 

Glass is a skill-based art form, taking years if ever, to learn all its nuances. A subtle change at the beginning of a piece can decide the entire outcome. Working with glass is a conversation full of back and forth, a lexicon you build slowly over time through intense listening and observation. 

What I love about glass is its inherently transformative nature. It is a liquid, then it is a solid, it is clear or it is colored, it is soft or hard, you see it by seeing through it. Capturing that “ah-ha” moment when the glass is transitioning from fluid to static, the graceful curve of the lines, the lightness and tension of how glass exists in space, all of these elements are front of mind when I am working. I create simple, organic shapes that encapsulate glass as a liquid. I then use these shapes in different configurations to investigate their dynamic relationship in the 3-dimensional world. I play with color and form to push and pull the eye around the work, creating landscapes that emulate elements of nature but aren’t representative, they are abstract. I look into the essence of an idea and distill out the essential qualities that evoke emotion and interaction with the viewer. 

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
I am living my dream; I couldn’t live in integrity if I hadn’t chosen this path. We are often told to follow our dreams, but society tells us to play it safe, have a good income, stability, a family. So, when those goals don’t align with following your dreams you can get lost in life. 

Being an artist is not easy, we are often undervalued and misunderstood, but not living this life would be harder for me than anything I have had to overcome to be an artist. I have a gift to share with the world, it is my job and my responsibility. I take that very seriously and often have to ask myself if doing something is in line with my goals or relevant to me creating breathtaking art, and if it isn’t I know I shouldn’t do it. 

There are many distractions and diversions but I ground myself in the knowledge that making glass is how I communicate my experience of being human, with all its struggles and joys, and that’s too important for me not to do. In 2007 I was riding my bike and got hit by a car. I lived because I was wearing a helmet but suffered a closed head injury, broken bones, and a collapsed lung. At the time I thought it was the worst thing that had ever happened to me, it almost derailed me. I didn’t work for over a year, spending that time in therapy getting my mind and my body healed and primed to get back in the studio. Glassblowing is very physical. It’s heavy and hot and exhausting but I was committed to recovery so I could do what I loved again. Now I look back at the experience and know-how valuable it was, shaping me into someone who knows she can overcome anything. 

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I create large-scale, iconic, placemaking artworks. I work with 2000-degree glass either blowing it or solid forming it into organic shapes that investigate the relationships of form and color to space. I create tabletop, wall, and hanging sculptures for public, private, and corporate environments, sometimes including lighting elements. 

I use superior craftsmanship and intelligent design to investigate and showcase elements from nature and how our perception of them changes depending on context. 

I invite the viewer to start a conversation with the work, determining for themselves what the abstract shapes “look like” or “remind them of” and each time they see the work to perhaps see something different that speaks to them in that moment and changes the trajectory of their day. 

Risk-taking is a topic that people have widely differing views on – we’d love to hear your thoughts.
I am approaching 50. I don’t know what 50 is supposed to feel like but I feel like it’s my moment to really dig deep. I might only have today but I hope to have at least the next 30 years to make my masterworks. I’m ready, my studio is ready, I don’t want to risk running out of time. I need to make the most out of every day. I cannot risk not having the time to get my ideas made, the world needs them as much as I need to make them. 

Pricing:

• Prices range from $4oo for small studies
• Up to $275,000 for large scale custom installations

Contact Info:

• Email: info@epiphanyglass.com
• Website: www.aprilwagner.com

Image Credits
Jenny Risher
Jeff Garland
Glenn Triest