BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION:
Paul Martinez, a California native, received his early creative education in art and drafting. He began his career working in art glass at the Judson Studios, a Southern California institution with over a 100-year history of providing quality stained glass windows in United States and around the world. This part time job evolved into a career in glass.
Always interested in the contemporary expression of glass, fused glass became Paul’s most recent endeavor, combining his technical abilities with his eye for color and design
ARTIST STATEMENT:
I haven’t considered myself to be an artist. I thought of myself as more a craftsman. I developed the skill and learned the techniques of working with glass and this, along with developing an eye for color and design, enables me to create art glass.
I began my education by working with leaded glass or stained glass. I started as an apprentice working at Judson Studios over 40 years ago. Judson Studios was, and still is, a stained glass studio with a national and even international reputation. Judson Studios has a history of over 140 years in designing and constructing leaded glass windows all across the United States. It is located a short distance from here in Highland Park. It’s founder, William Lees Judson, was also a painter and part of the Arroyo School of art. The studio itself is in a building that was formally the USC School of architecture. Where William Lees Judson was a teacher. They now have a second studio in South Pasadena.
As an apprentice it was my job to soak up as much as I could about every aspect of the process of making of stained glass windows … and I loved it. At Judson’s, I was surrounded by artist and craftsman with many talents, people who had honed their skills through decades of working with glass. I was exposed to many different techniques and styles of glasswork; traditional art glass designs as well a modern. And, perhaps most importantly, I learned about different types of glass.
I fell in love with the art and the glass. I wanted to learn as much as I could. And because I was cheap labor, I found myself working nights and weekends at other small studios in the area, which exposed me to more different kinds of glass projects. I worked on churches and temples, restaurants and many beautiful homes.
Window repairs were well above half of this work. Many of the windows I repaired were decades old, sometimes over a hundred years old. I felt it an honor to work on some excellent stained glass windows that came from Europe during the mid to late 1800’s. I also was privileged to work on some windows and lamps by Louis Comfort Tiffany studios, probably the most famous art glass studio.
Fortunately I was able to make a career out of what I learned. I became a foreman at another studio, and then a few years later I started my own business. Then, about 23 years ago, I began seriously pursuing fusing glass. Although I am now retired from making leaded glass windows. I still feel the same love of glass and fortunately I get to keep doing what has been my passion for many years. Any day I get to work in my glass shop is a good day.
