Tell us about yourself.
Spurchise, originally from Syracuse, New York, is skilled in both glassblowing and metalworking and has shown work both nationally and internationally. His main body of work is a visual cacophony of whimsical and eccentric glass sea monsters. Currently, Tim works as a shop tech for Third Degree Glass Factory in St. Louis, Missouri. He recently received his M.F.A. in glass from Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, Illinois, where he has worked as a shop tech for the glass department throughout the full three years of pursuing the degree. Prior to attending graduate school, he worked as a staff instructor at the Chrysler Museum Glass Studio in Norfolk, Virginia, and as an instructional assistant for the glass department at Tidewater Community College in Portsmouth, Virginia. In 2014 he received his B.A. in Studio Art and a B.A. in Art History from Hartwick College in Oneonta, New York.
What themes do you pursue in your work, and why have you chosen the processes that you use in your work?
My current body of work is a visual cacophony of whimsical and eccentric glass sea monsters. These twenty-first century sea monsters parallel their Medieval predecessors by drawing upon the fear and superstition of what lives beneath the water’s surface. While some of these sea monsters exist as a representation of the loss of potential discovery, others act as a facetious metaphor for the unknown state of the future of our oceans.