Artist Info
Norman Faulkner
One of the founders of the studio glass movement in Canada, Edmonton-born Norman Faulkner launched his own hot glass studio, Norm’s Garage, that produces glass from small conceptual pieces to large-scale commissions.
After earning his B.F.A. in Ceramics at the Alberta College of Art (1973), Faulkner studied glass at the Sheridan College School of Design in Ontario. He accepted a teaching position at the Alberta College of Art and created its glass studio programme, and eventually journeyed to the Royal College of Art in London for an M.A. in Glass (1986).
Faulkner combines his glass practice with Samadhi, a component of Buddhist meditation he translates as “focus and concentration.” He says, “Working with hot glass has a lot of parallels to developing Samadhi, because really, it’s the ability to focus and not be distracted by… all the other stuff that your mind wants to do…. If you blow glass…. Your brain wave pattern adapts to it…. And so, you could easily say that blowing glass in fact is … a form of meditation.”
Faulkner helped created a documentary called Glass India. His exhibitions include an Alberta College of Art staff exhibition (1979), the Calgary Glass Symposium (1980), and The Works (1979, 1980) and Showcase 80 (1980) in Edmonton. The Alberta College of Art + Design (formerly the Alberta College of Art) gave Falkner its Board of Governors' Alumni Award of Excellence (2011).
