Michelle Kaptur has been blowing glass since 1975, when she became the second woman in Oregon to take up the craft. She earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree at Pacific NorthWest College of Arts in Portland, Oregon, after which she spent 10 years learning the basics of glass-blowing.
Michelle then shifted artistic gears and spent several years painting, which “put together all the composition, color and design concepts I learned about in school. When I came back to glass, I had a much stronger sense of the kinds of design choices I wanted to make and why. I feel my work became ‘my work’ after this.”
Michelle blew glass with IceFire Glassworks and Alder House before opening her own glass studio, Glass Dancing, in Bend, Oregon, in 1994. The first SoulBurst was blown in 1995.
Many galleries around the country feature Michelle’s pieces, and she is widely collected.