Humphreys, Robert

I am drawn above all to the juniper. Junipers grow where nothing else can, enduring wind,
rock, animals, and every force imaginable, and still surviving. They turn twisted, burled, and
crooked from all they have withstood — often clinging to a mountainside where a person can
barely stand. I grew up among them in the canyons outside Logan, Utah, where they were
simply part of the landscape — until I started looking closely. Dead Horse Point, near Moab,
became a place I returned to whenever I could; the junipers there, contorted by wind above the
Colorado River, are among the most extraordinary living things I’ve seen. After a life that took
me across the world — including a winter in Antarctica — I’ve spent the past two years in
Arkansas, which I now consider home. The juniper has followed me through all of it, and it has
been the subject of much of my work; what moves me most is its resilience — the way it stays
flexible through struggle.
For nearly two decades I have worked borosilicate glass in the flame, shaping organic forms
from the natural world — trees, birds, and dragons that reflect my love of the outdoors and a
fascination with anatomy: the hidden structure beneath surface appearances. I have studied at
the Corning Museum of Glass Studio over several years, working alongside some of the most
talented artists in the field, and that training continues to shape both my technique and my
sense of what glass can do. I am drawn to the place where the organic and the engineered
converge — where a root system resembles a circuit diagram, where a bone suggests a
landscape, where light passing through glass reveals a depth that solid matter conceals.
My work does not begin with a concept. It begins with a mark, a gather of molten glass, a line
in graphite — and it proceeds from there, shaped as much by material resistance as by
intention. I am less interested in expressing ideas than in discovering forms that already exist,
waiting to be found.