KATONAH, NY.- Martha Taylor is joining the Katonah Art Center’s illustrious roster of instructors as a glass artist and teacher for their Spring 2011 Session.

Talk to Ms. Taylor, and her love of glass is obvious. “With glass, your medium is light, and you create a path for it to move through. It’s amazing”

Ms Taylor works using a wide range of techniques: casting, kilnforming, deep sandblasting, lampworking, cold construction, and even photography on glass. But no matter the technique, it’s all about light. “Clear white light is invisible, yet it illuminates our world,” says Ms. Taylor. “There’s something really beautiful about that and about the possibility of bringing its hidden colors out through how you cut the glass, like a prism.”

There is a special bond between glass artists according to Ms. Taylor, maybe because the medium itself can sometimes be user unfriendly, especially when you’re getting used to it. “I had to learn to slow down, and be a much more careful person. Glass can burn and cut you, and because it becomes unstable when it’s heated and cooled it can crack or break,” she says. “Yet ultimately it leaves you in utter awe of its intrinsic beauty--this is why you stay with it.” “It’s a bit of a metaphor for some of our human relationships!” she jokes.

Ms. Taylor has worked with some of the most accomplished glass artists in the world. Internationally renowned glass artist Paul Stankard has been Ms. Taylor’s mentor since early in her career and advised her when she was designing her home studio several years ago. Mr. Stankard’s works are housed in permanent collections at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Smithsonian Institution, and many other major museums throughout the world.

Ms. Taylor also studied with the Venetian lampworker Emilio Santini and Martin Rosol at the Corning Museum of Glass, Jane Bruce and Robert Mickelson at Urban Glass, Eric Hilton at Steuben, and many others. “I have learned so much from these great artists. I’d like to pass on some of the knowledge I’ve gained and my love of glass art to my students,” says Ms. Taylor.

Not only is Ms. Taylor an accomplished glass artist, but she is also a professional singer. Her career as a musician spanned from Broadway’s counter-culture classic Hair (1977), to several shows at the Public Theater and concerts of her original songs at LaMama Etc, and NYC cabarets She also sings in Welsh, in the US and at the National Eisteddfod in Wales, where she won a competition for an a cappella traditional song.

Ms. Taylor compares music with glass art. “The whole physics of it fascinates me. As a musician, I feel they go hand in hand. Both are about waves—light waves and sound waves. There’s a direct relationship between the science and the aesthetic. I love that. Maybe that’s why I’m so drawn to both.”

Ms. Taylor works out of her studio in Rye Brook, NY. She has a daughter in college and a son in high school.