Michael Taylor (Glass artist)

Michael Taylor
Born	1944 Lewisburg, Tennessee
Nationality	U.S. citizen
Other names	Michael Estes Taylor, Michael E. Taylor
Occupation	Artist, educator
Known for	Geometric fused glass sculptures

Michael Taylor is an American studio glass artist, teacher and lecturer. His best known body of work is his geometric glass sculptures. He works the glass cold, shaping, polishing and laminating translucent colored and clear blocks of glass together using epoxy resin.

Michael Estes Taylor was born in Lewisburg, Tennessee and began to draw at age 12. At age 18 he entered Middle Tennessee University in Murfreesboro where he was awarded a B.S. in art education. He entered graduate school in 1967 at East Tennessee University in Johnson City, where he received a summer scholarship to Penland School of Crafts. There he was first exposed to glass as an artist's medium. He returned to Penland in 1968 and, with the encouragement of glass artist Fritz Dreisbach, began to work with glass. Taylor graduated from East Tennessee University in 1969 with an M.A. in sculpture and ceramics. That summer he studied glass at the University of Utah under University of California-Berkeley instructor Marvin Lipofsky. In the fall Taylor returned to Tusculum College in Greenville, Tennessee, where he was working as a part-time art instructor, to take a full-time teaching position.

In 1970 Taylor attended the Toledo Museum School's Glass Workshop, where he met a number of the artists involved in the Studio Glass Movement, including Dominick Labino, Harvey Littleton, Harvey Leafgreen, Jack Schmidt, Doug Johnson, Tom McGlauchlin and Henry Halem. Returning to Tusculum College, Taylor won a Louis Comfort Tiffany grant to work with Harvey Littleton at Littleton's studio in Verona, Wisconsin. In 1977, while serving as the chair of the art department at Peabody College, Taylor returned to graduate school at East Tennessee State University, where he was awarded an M.F.A. in sculpture.

Taylor accepted his first teaching position in 1968 at Tusculum College, where he built a glass facility in 1971. He left Tusculum in 1972 for a job as an associate professor of art at Peabody College of Vanderbilt University. In addition to his duties at Peabody, Taylor lectured at Penland and taught during the summer at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts and Naples Mills School of Arts and Crafts in Naples, New York. He also found time to begin glass programs at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore and Peters Valley Craft Center in Layton, New Jersey.

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