Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to April Wagner. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

April, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.

I’m an artist who is in love with blowing glass, and I have been since I took my first class in college at Alfred. I went there to study ceramics and thought I would spend my life working in clay, but after my first time holding molten glass, I was hooked. So much so that I changed schools, moved to a different state, and devoted my life to working with a 2000-degree material that I couldn’t touch with my hands, is expensive to make, difficult to learn, and incredibly fragile. Most people thought I was crazy, that it was a phase and soon I would move on to something else, but after 30 years of working with glass I am still captivated by it and curious about what I will do with it next.

The process of learning to work with glass means you must be in the studio working with glass. Not watching videos, or reading books, but getting your hands in the game, feeling how the material moves and how you respond to it. You must have a mental dialogue and muscle memory, you need to understand a little bit of physics, even more chemistry, and have access to a studio. Glass-blowing studios cost thousands of dollars to build and thousands more to operate. The furnaces run 24/7 making the energy costs quite high, so after spending years making things that fell on the floor and were terribly ugly while renting other people’s studios, I doubled down. It takes a lot of stubbornness and drive to build your own studio and keep making glass. Luckily, I embody both.

I built my studio in 2000 and continued building my skill set with glass, but once you make good glass you have to do something with it. The best thing to do is sell it so you can keep making more good glass, so now I also had to build a business. That entailed a lot and was mostly a comedy of errors but again, stubbornness and drive kept me going. There are always obstacles, what matters is that you keep your goal front of mind so you can overcome them.

And when it was the time was right, I used all my knowledge to create art. Traditionally artists hire master glassblowers to create their ideas. I didn’t have to do that. I have the skills to create my own ideas in glass and find the most pleasure in creating my iconic, large-scale, site-specific sculptures for public, private, and corporate spaces.

April, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I am the owner and resident artist at epiphany studios in Pontiac, MI, about 45 minutes north of Detroit. I create two distinct lines of work, each branded separately.

My studio line, epiphany glass, is the brand that creates stunning hand-blown glass gifts, awards, vessels, and decorative objects. We work with a broad range of markets, from retail to wholesale and b2b, so no matter if we are creating a one-of-a-kind piece or an order of 1,000 pieces you can expect superior craftsmanship, excellent customer service, and safe packaging. I design all of this work and employ a great team of studio artists to help me create it. Glassblowing is a team effort and I’m very proud of my team and their commitment to the quality inherent to the epiphany brand. We also offer hands-on experience for guests to join us in the studio to make their own glass. Guests chose their own colors, hold the hand tools, and work at the 2,000-degree furnace with a little guidance from the studio artists. We love blowing glass and we love sharing it with people because it is so fun, an experience never to be forgotten.

My signature line, April Wagner, is where I make sculptures. Using influences from nature, I create glass elements in an organic, free-form manner referencing shapes that we all understand, extracting the essence, not to imitate or replicate the thing, but to capture the feeling of the thing, inviting the viewer to choose their own interpretation. Using smaller pieces assembled into larger sculptures, I look at the choices of the individual in relation to the group, studying how relationships change in conjunction with color, scale, and placement, much like how our roles in society change as we are labeled by family or community, or as we evolve and grow on our journey.

My sculptural work also investigates glass as an organic, molten material. Unlike anything else known to humankind, glass is in a constant state of flux, its dynamic nature is uniquely and constantly in transition, much like we are. Glass is a material that allows us to see and be seen, but we all see something unique because we start the conversation from our individual perspectives and paradigms. Our lexicons of understanding are shaped by our life experiences. My work invites the viewer into a conversation, from wherever they are, to explore what they “see” and how that makes them feel.

My sculptural work is featured in collections worldwide including Pfizer, Lincoln, Huntington Place, The Four Seasons, Oregon Supreme Court Building, and Henry Ford Center Cancer. I love it when my work affects people, taking them out of the moment and offering them another view. The power of art is that it gives us the opportunity to have a new understanding.

My work is my legacy, it is the gift I give the world. The path of the artist is full of challenges and obstacles and when you let yourself get derailed you fall out of line, out of integrity, with the reason you exist. Everyone’s gift is different, and I am proud to be able to share mine. I am also very proud of running a successful business, employing seven people, and giving back to my community. The studio has partnered with Michigan Humane and we give a portion of the proceeds from our pet-themed artworks to them.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

In 2007, after blowing glass and running my business for 14 years, I got hit by a car. I was riding my bike and the next thing I remember I was in the hospital with a lot of broken bones, a collapsed lung, and a closed head injury. The doctors weren’t sure if I would ever blow glass again. It was a come-to-Jesus moment where I had to decide what path my life was going to take. I wasn’t very happy at work, I didn’t like the things I was making, and my husband/business partner and I were not seeing eye to eye.

The accident was a sign that it was time to make a change. I needed a year of physical therapy, two years of cognitive therapy, and to do some serious soul searching. I made a short list of other things I could do with myself, waitressing being the best option. But instead of quitting what I had worked 14 years to build I doubled down. I did the work, finished the therapies, divorced my husband and bought him out of the business, created new lines of glass, and changed the focus to making more sculptures.

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

I am constantly learning. Looking at what I like in the world and want to see more of, not just doing the same old things because that’s the way it has always been done. You don’t know what you don’t know and if you stop looking you will never know because what got you from A to B won’t necessarily get you to C and D.

I went to art school, I got a BFA in Glass. I was never taught to market, budget, manage or lead a team. So when I wanted to grow my business, I took the Goldman Sachs 10KSB class and learned all the things I had never been taught. Once I completed that and needed more guidance, I hired a business coach. It was hard work and very expensive but investing in yourself is your best resource, she helped me in ways reading a book no longer could.

I also developed a network of mentors and sponsors. People I respect who I ask advice from or am given opportunities by and I, in turn, have provided those same things to the people I mentor and sponsor. Artists are not silos, they need communities that are supportive, engaging, and critical in a positive way that allows growth.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.epiphanyglass.com and www.AprilWagner.com
• Instagram: @epiphanyglass
• Facebook: @epiphanyglass
• Linkedin: april-wagner
• Youtube: @epiphanystudios

Image Credits
Glenn Triest epiphany studios