Josh Opdenaker

Josh Opdenaker earned a bachelor’s of fine arts degree in sculpture with a focus on stone carving from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia in 2002. After graduation, he began studying lampworking and has been a resident artist at Philadelphia Glass Works since its founding in 2003.

His glass work ranges from the absurd to the edgy and aggressive. Josh describes the beauty of glass sculpting to be the never-ending struggle for perfection in theory and in execution. He points out that the art is not in the finished piece. Rather, the art is in the physical movement of creating the work. His innovative techniques and concepts leave much contemplation and introspection and never get stale by constantly changing subject matter. With such a range of style, his work is impossible to generalize or classify, leaving it much in a class of its own. Josh said, “If nothing else, view my work as original. Technique and craft can be learned, originality cannot. You either have it, or you do not.”