(mellow music) - For me, being in nature is a really grounding experience.

I feel like I'm more creative when I'm out in the woods, and I'm also, I think, inspired by the overwhelming complexity that's evident everywhere around when you're wandering around in the outdoors.

The way that lightning will branch across the sky, the way a light will reflect off of a spider web, I feel like there's this poetry everywhere in the world.

It humbles me as a human and as a creator, (mellow music continuing) (waves crashing) (waves crashing) and I try to convey that little bit of magic in my artwork.

(lively music) These sculptures start out with glass that's melted at 2,100 degrees.

I use an iron rod to dip into the molten glass, and turn it and gather it out.

(lively music continuing) And then we shape the corners of the bag.

After I pull the corners of the bag, I use a wooden paddle to shape the glass and flatten the bottom.

One of the things I like about blowing glass so much is that it requires a hundred percent of your focus.

You have to shut off everything else and just be one with the material and the process.

I'll use my hot torch to spot heat the sides of the sculpture, and I use this knife to create these indents that kind of act as wrinkles.

Dialing in the correct wrinkles is, I think, critical to selling the illusion.

Everything has to be perfect, 'cause if one thing's out of place, your eye goes immediately to that.

(lively music continuing) Finally, the knot and tassel portion is created, and that is kind of welded onto the top of the water bag, finishing the sculpture.

It's all about the moment.

There is a beautiful artifact at the end that has no lies about what happened.

(lively music) With the water bags, I like to say it's a celebration of the material.

I think the key components that make the water bag look real are the creases of the bag and the gesture of the form.

(mellow music) I don't know how it works though, but when you do it in a certain way it somehow just becomes this feel of water.

(mellow music continuing) I actually intentionally added the air bubbles to break the illusion that it's real, 'cause I think without the cues that it's not real, the magic wouldn't happen as fast.

People commonly ask me how do I get the water in the bag, or how do I change out the water, and I have to correct them that it is in fact a hundred percent glass.

(water sloshing) They look more real than a real bag of water.

I can literally put a plastic bag of water next to it, and you'd rather look at the glass bag.

(lively music) I mean, I thought the water bags were cool, but I had no idea that it would hit a mass appeal.

I try to stay in gratitude for all the attention that it's gotten, and try not to get caught up in the hype.

(lively music continuing) I'm just a guy in a studio, trying to make some work that he is really passionate about, and do it the best I can.

(lively music continuing) So besides the water bag sculptures I make, I've explored a variety of optical pieces.

(mellow music) I think part of my process is just experimenting with the material and having an open mind enough to watch for happy accidents, and that I can be open to what it will reveal to me, or I can reveal of it.

(mellow music continuing) It's having the independence to solve the problems, to translate the ideas into a a form.

(mellow music continuing) (blowing) (scissors snipping) (mellow music) One of the biggest reasons I love glass is that it's limitless.

There's no way to master it completely.

(mellow music continuing) I feel like I have a pretty good foundation for understanding the material, at least how it moves.

(mellow music continuing) But I also know that the possibilities are endless, which is daunting and exciting.

So I'm excited to truly see what other ideas I can pull out of it.

(birds chirping) (water trickling) (mellow music continuing) Yeah, I really hope that my artwork can, at a minimum, snap people out of the humdrum of typical life, just for a moment of playful curiosity.

(mellow music continuing) (birds chirping)