Bioglass is a novel, non-toxic, biodegradable material that resembles traditional glass, developed over cycles of iterative experimentation. It is rigid, optically clear, transparent, and lightweight.
When its useful life ends, bioglass can be returned to the earth, where it naturally biodegrades and provides nutrients rather than persisting as waste. Or it can be re-melted and made into a new object or form.
Materials Collection, Phase II, Center for Craft→
As a Materials Research Fellow→ supported by the Maxwell/Hanrahan Foundation, and in close partnership with Program Director and Curator Mellanee Goodman, I co-directed the research, taxonomy, acquisition, user experience, and infrastructure development for Phase II of the Center's Materials Collection.
Bioglass is a novel, non-toxic, biodegradable material that resembles traditional glass, developed over cycles of iterative experimentation. It is rigid, optically clear, transparent, and lightweight.
When its useful life ends, bioglass can be returned to the earth, where it naturally biodegrades and provides nutrients rather than persisting as waste. Or it can be re-melted and made into a new object or form.
The Collection is a growing archive of 150+ craft material samples created as a resource for makers, emphasizing artists' relationships with a range of mediums—from clay, wood, glass, fiber, and metal to sustainable, bio-based, and emerging materials.
The Phase II update included material acquisitions, new material sample categories, the addition of keywords emphasizing the origin and properties of materials, new listed applications, improved search functionality, featured artist video installations, and a re-design of the digital collection.
Design research included creation of a Materials Focus Group including 31 makers, artists, and material specialists from across the country to assess the Collection as a resource for artists.
Through design thinking exercises and participatory methods, these Material Focus Groups explored a range of themes including material embodiment, discovery, learning, and process, cultural and material histories, and ethics.
Design research included creation of a Materials Focus Group including 31 makers, artists, and material specialists from across the country to assess the Collection as a resource for artists.
Through design thinking exercises and participatory methods, these Material Focus Groups explored a range of themes including material embodiment, discovery, learning, and process, cultural and material histories, and ethics.
Objects created with bioglass are designed for contemplation and to exist in spaces of daily life. Each piece is unique, considered, and an invitation to engage a little deeper with the objects that make up our material world.
Bioglass grounds a broader theoretical inquiry into the condition of material estrangement→ and the counterimage→ (a design methodology and critical framework) developed through my publication Seeing Through Glass: On Materiality, Estrangement, and the Counterimage→.
The collection was reimagined as a maker-centered resource that expands understanding of—and access to—a wide range of materials, including a growing assortment of biomaterials shaping the future of craft.
Objects created with bioglass are designed for contemplation and to exist in spaces of daily life. Each piece is unique, considered, and an invitation to engage a little deeper with the objects that make up our material world.
Bioglass grounds a broader theoretical inquiry into the condition of material estrangement→ and the counterimage→ (a design methodology and critical framework) developed through my publication Seeing Through Glass: On Materiality, Estrangement, and the Counterimage→.
As a Materials Research Fellow, I was invited to speak at the 2025 Future Histories Benefit→ celebrating 20 years of the Craft Research Fund and collaborated with James Beard semifinalist Chef Eric Morris on an edible biomaterial series served as an amuse-bouche during the benefit dinner.
Bioglass→ (produced by my studio practice, Matter of Threes) is held in the Center for Craft Materials Collection→
