Vickie Mastron Cody

    I grew up in Los Angeles area of Southern California. I took my first ceramics class in junior college and fell in love with the material instantly. I was drawn in by how ceramics is so much about the process, the chemistry, and the physical and molecular changes that take place with glazing and firing. During my undergraduate years I studied under numerous renowned ceramic artists including Peter Voulkos, Paul Soldner, and Jerry Rothman. While working on my Bachelor of Arts degree in ceramics at California State University at Fullerton, I was introduced to working with blown glass, and a whole new world was opened up to me. I was enamored by manipulating a material in extreme heat to form the elements in my art objects. It was at that time that I developed a passion for working with glass. Glass has marvelously unique characteristics and is a phenomenal material. It can be transparent or opaque. Classified not as a solid, but as a super cool liquid. In one state it is hot, fluid and sensual. So alluring, and yet you can never really touch it when you’re working with it in its molten state. So it is also, in some ways elusive, and that is intriguing to me.

    Upon graduating from Cal State Fullerton I was awarded a teaching scholarship at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles where I earned my Master of Fine Arts degree in Intermedia Sculpture.

    I was introduced to bead making by a glassblower’s wife. I loved it from the first moment I picked up a mandrel and have been hooked ever since. Bead making allows me the opportunity to work with molten glass, only on the miniature scale of a bead. I thoroughly enjoy “painting” with glass. Although I work in a series, no two beads are ever exactly alike. Each piece is unique. My work is constantly improving technically and evolving aesthetically. As a sculptor, I’ve been driven to expand my usage of beads beyond jewelry into a realm of mixed media pieces combining glass, clay, and metal. In 2006 I began working with fused glass, which has opened up a new way to work with glass and added another level of visual depth and technical complexity.

Selected Exhibitions
Lines Into Shapes, Art Center of Estes Park, CO
|Flaming Aesthetic , Featured Artist Art Center of Estes Park, Estes Park, CO
Platte Etude, Platte River Art Services, Denver, CO
Betty Asher’s Cups, Triton Museum of Art, Santa Clara, CA
Child’s Play, Harris Gallery, University of Southern California, University Park, Los Angeles, CA
Betty Asher’s Cups, Newport Harbor Art Museum, Newport Beach, CA
The First Biennial Juried Exhibition, Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
Betty Asher’s Cups, Los Angeles County Art Museum, Permanent Collection