Susan Stinsmuehlen-Amend

Susan Stinsmuehlen-Amend is a glass artist. Stinsmuehlen-Amend’s early work concentrated on bold, experimental pieces that defied idealized standards of beauty, taste, form and pattern. She crossed over the various methods of manipulating glass and incorporated other media into her assemblage-like pieces, using scraps of everyday material to give them texture and depth. In the late 1990s, the structure of her work moved towards rectilinearity, with diptychs and triptychs of contrasted figures and patterns. She broke her compositions down into split segments that were meant to be absorbed together despite being separated into individual panels. Recently she has begun to sandwich the individual glass planes of images on top of one another, giving them multi-dimensionality. In these layered wall panels the viewer is meant to see into the depth of the piece but not through it, as would be the case if these panes were acting as traditional windows or screens.

Born in Baltimore, Stinsmuehlen-Amend was educated at Hood College, Indiana University at Bloomington, and the University of Texas at Austin. She studied painting and drawing before going on to run a successful Austin architectural glass business starting in 1973. Stinsmuehlen-Amend studied with glass artists Narcissus Quagliata and Paul Marioni.

A former member and president of the board of directors of the Glass Art Society, Stinsmuehlen-Amend has served as a guest artist and lecturer at many schools, including Penland School of Crafts, Rhode Island School of Design, and Pilchuck Glass School. Her work can be found in collections including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Detroit Institute of the Arts, Oakland Museum of California, and the Museum of Arts and Design.

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