Tommy Cudmore started his artistic career using acrylic -a clear plastic material that shares certain attributes with glass. Eventually realizing acrylic has limitations which glass does not he applied to Sheridan College. After his first year at Sheridan, he demonstrated the appropriate skills to acquire a residency at “The Red Barns” glass studio in Picton, Ontario. Following his second year of education at Sheridan, Tommy moved to Campbell River, British Columbia to work at “Tideline Gallery” as a lamp-worker and furnace blower. There he gained a new appreciation for glass and the studio environment. He now is a self employed glass artist pursuing his main body of work, “Tropical Iceberg”.

I started making objects at a very young age, upgrading my choice of material as I developed as an artist, eventually I found glass; the most mentally and physically exerting material available. The intensity of working with hot molten glass allows me to escape my outer world and recluse into my internal creativity. I use this material to capture the ignorance, innocence and imagination I had in my youth. I often attempt to juxtapose the cute and cuddly with the evil and malicious. Exposing the moment when I, and each person loses their purity in exchange for the harsh truths about the world we live in. I use the penguin as my own personal avatar to express the emotions and thoughts which consume me.