Cowboy Dana enjoying a
morning coffee at the Territory
Days in Old Colorado City.

Glass Artist Bio: Dana Robbins 

Dana Robbins began his experimentation with molten glass in the late 1980's. During his undergraduate studies at San Jose State University, Dana developed his artist style using blown glass and metals such as silver and bronze. He created many 3-dimensional sculptures using the mixed media. While working towards a bachelor's degree in Art Education at SJSU, he continued working as a TA, for Mary B. White, teaching glassblowing to the beginning students and continued to create new glass and bronze sculptures. During this time at SJSU, Dana had an opportunity to submit his designs to the Corning Museum of Glass. In 1989, Dana received national recognition from the Corning Museum for his first submission "The Gator Bowl", and again in 1990 for "Artifact #7". Slides of this work are published in the 1989 and 1990 editions of "New Glass Review" and these images are in the permanent archive collection at the Corning Museum of Glass.

In the early 1990's, Dana continued his glass education and traveled to the Pilchuck Glass School, attending glass blowing and design classes with Flora Mace, Joey Kirkpatrick and Dan Daily. Twice Dana ventured to Pilchuck and studied with these innovative artists, learning new techniques and applications for this material. His class on architectural elements with Dan Daily was extremely influential on his future design ideas.

In 1992, Dana started a flat glass design company, Icon Studios with two other partners, Andrew and Vienna Moore. They created architectural glass designs for small businesses, restaurants, casinos and private homes, sandblasting and deep carving on flat glass. This business was very successful and Dana learned a great deal about the techniques used to create flat glass designs. However, Dana's true calling was to work with hot glass and in 1996, he had an opportunity to build a hot shop in New Mexico. Dana and his wife Karen planned a move from San Jose, CA to the more peaceful, rural town of Stanley, NM. This decision to move onto the old family cattle ranch was an opportunity for the future that they needed to act on. It was the start of a new life and their new business, Robbins Ranch Art Glass.