The world of glass

LEHI — Glass is one of the most amazing compounds on the planet. Liquid at high temperatures, brittle at cooler ones, often transparent but able to absorb almost any color, often associated with light and brilliance, glass is one of the oldest manmade substances, dating back to Mesopotamia and about 3,500 B.C.

It is also one of the most artistic. From the stained glass windows of medieval times to the rise of art glass in the 19th century with the likes of Rene Lalique and Louis Comfort Tiffany, to modern studios today, glass has decorated our world.

"It has so many possibilities," said Tom Holdman, director of Holdman Studios and the Art Institute, which have been housed at Thanksgiving Point since 2005. "You can blow it, cut it, carve it, sculpt it, fuse it together. That's what I love about it, that versatility."

Holdman has been designing glass art since 1988. He was drawn to arts at an early age. "I've had a speech impediment, struggled with stuttering my whole life, so I had to look to other ways to express myself. I've always done sketches and drawings."

But it was when he was returning from an LDS mission in Texas that he "felt impressed that I needed to do art glass, to make that my career. I was a little surprised, because I hadn't thought about that before."

He had been fortunate enough to take a class in stained glass from James Cloward at Orem High School, which at the time was the only stained glass course being taught in the state. "That had opened my eyes to the possibilities of glass, and I felt this was what God wanted me to do," Holdman said.

"I asked my parents to pull their cars out of the garage and let me use it as a studio. Then I went knocking on doors around the neighborhood to see if anyone wanted a stained glass window."

As soon as he had done a few projects and scraped together enough money for airfare and a rental car, he and his brother went to Europe.

"We drove around for a month, and slept in the car most of the time, because we didn't have money for hotels, but we spent hours on end examining the great cathedrals of Europe," Holdman said. He remembers, in particular, standing at the St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague, looking at stained glass done by Alfons Mucha. "I was moved so much. I knew I wanted to do pieces on this scale."