Gateson Recko

Gateson Recko was born in Philadelphia, PA. In his youth, Gateson found great solace in art, most notably graffiti and photography. After receiving his BA in Architecture from Columbia University, he returned to Philadelphia. Gateson’s artistic goals shifted from buildings to glass, and in the mid-nineties he was a co-founder, as well as the Artistic Director, of Hot Soup, Philadelphia’s first public glassblowing facility. After five years of furnace worked glass, Gateson turned his focus towards flameworking. In 2000, Gateson’s adventures took him to Taos, a remote mountain town in northern New Mexico. Both the isolation and the crystal clear night skies of New Mexico reinvigorated his interest in the beauty of the universe. As a result, he started incorporating universe themes into glass spheres. The Universe Marble was created and earned Gateson first prize at the 2002 Albuquerque Flameworking Competition, the first of its kind. Since that time, Gateson has revisited the east coast where he currently resides in Swedesboro, NJ. His focus has remained on Universe Marbles and space themed work. Gateson’s art has been shown at SOFA New York and Chicago as well as Palm Beach 3 and belongs to the permanent collections of the Wheaton Museum of American Glass, The Corning Museum of Glass and the Kobe Flameworking Museum in Kobe, Japan. Most recently, Gateson was the featured artist for both the Borosilicate Art Expo in Yokohama, Japan and for WheatonArts Marble Weekend in Millville, New Jersey. Through Gateson’s dedication to expanding the boundaries of the contemporary marble, he has unlocked the limitless space within a glass sphere. The Universe Marble journey began for me in 2000. I had moved from Philadelphia to New Mexico and it was under the naked mountain skies that I discovered a secret universe waiting to be explored hidden deep inside a glass sphere. Although glass, and for that matter, space themes were not new to me, the language that I set out to create was on a new level of expectation. I began a series of experiments to find the methods of producing the most hyper real intergalactic environments, and in 2002, my design won the marble category in the first ever 'flame-off' held in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Since the first Universe Marble, I have been on a constant quest to go deeper into a new language in glass. The planets and celestial objects that I create are not literal but rather informed by science fiction with an openness to the limitless possibilities for color and texture of planets beyond our current viewing capabilities. It has been amazing to see the growth of the glass flameworking community and to know that I had a part in perhaps the greatest explosion of American glass artists ever is humbling to say the least. Universe Marbles are privately collected worldwide and are in the collections of the Corning Museum of Glass, Wheaton Museum and the Kobe Flameworking Museum. I like to spend my downtime in a space of different sorts, experimenting with electronic music and occasionally making tracks. The tracks are mainly used as backing tracks for videos but having access to both retro gear and modern computer equipment has made a once distant interest much more tangible. You can hear a few tracks on my SoundCloud page. I've had a lifelong love for the arts. Born and raised in Philadelphia, I spent my early creative years exploring graffiti and photography. I graduated from Columbia University in NYC with a degree in Architecture. Shortly after college, I started to experiment with glass when my friend, Adam Kamens took me on weekend excursions to Sam Bloom's studio. Over the next few years, I immersed myself into the world of furnace blown glass and in 1995, I helped Adam build Hot Soup, Philadelphia's first public glassblowing facility. My weekend hobby became a career as the first Artistic Director. After several years of furnace glass blowing, I made the decision to transition to flameworking and ran a small underground flameworking studio in South Philly before heading west for a much needed change of scenery. Over the next few years, I started spending more time with artist and wife, Jillian Molettiere, aka grippingTEA. We have lived and worked together for the past 13 years and currently have a small private studio, Ample Space, tucked away just outside of downtown Los Angeles.