He’s the Glass Man. But not the traditional glass-blowing kind. He turns the heart of glass into the art of glass, and he does it in a way that takes glass back to its earliest beginnings. Clear. Molten. Elemental.

He is Duane Dahl - a glass artist whose works can be seen everywhere from fine restaurants like Wolfgang Puck’s “Granita” in Malibu to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, DC.

Glass Artist Duane Dahl has been working in Santa Fe since 1982, creating glass art that is amazing, dramatic, and unusual. At his studio on Baca Street, he uses warm glass kiln techniques to fuse, form, cast and slump mostly clear glass into forms of fantasy - forms that have inspired architects, designers, art collectors and celebrities to include his work in their homes and businesses.

Dahl’s Glass creations are multi-dimensional and multi-layered. They are designed to change the settings in which where they appear, often changing even the sense of what is solid and what is liquid - what is seen and yet unseen - what is lit and what is light. This sense of mutable reality is accentuated and emphasised by Dahl’s use of a variety of inclusions between the fused layers of clear glass. Metals, minerals, stone, wire, and even glass threads create patterns of amazing complexity - depth within depth - spaces within spaces - masterful illusions that turn the light and tune the imagination.

In recent years, Dahl has expanded his vision to include two signature giftware lines - his “Rio Grande” series, and his RioZen” series. Both lines combine river rock with clear glass that has been kiln formed to create the illusion of water flowing over the stones. The lines have been so successful, that they can now be seen in over ninety galleries and shops across the United States.