About crisschaney

Criss Chaney was born in Seattle, Washington, where she first learned to work with stained glass. After high school she moved to San Francisco to study at California College of the Arts, where she discovered the magic of molten glass. There, she won a scholarship to go to Pilchuck Glass School, where she continues to spend her summers. In 2004 she made the leap across the Atlantic and moved to England to finish her degree at the University of Sunderland. Criss' work is about the human experience, spirituality and the subconscious. Throughout time and across cultures humans have felt the need to create religions, spiritual practices, and art to express their subjective and intuitive experiences. Criss is an internationally recognized glass artist, who has exhibited extensively in the UK, Europe, and the United States. Including a solo exhibition at the Museum Humanum in Austria. For years she has been developing techniques for combining glass and metals, exploiting methods for working with both materials. Her pieces make people question their views on glass and push the boundaries between glass and other media. She has completed commissions for Sunderland City Council and HSBC Bank and now makes her work at Creative Cohesion Creative Cohesion in Sunderland, where she has been the Treasurer and on the Board of Directors.

One to One Stained Glass Tutorials

Posted on January 4, 2012 by crisschaney

Looking at the design and choosing colors

In November I did a private teaching session with Amy Wang an international business student from Shanghai. She is working towards an arts award in the hopes that she will be able to develop ways of thinking creatively and apply that to her business practice. As part of her arts award she spent two days with me creating a stained glass mandala. She used the copper foil technique, and black tracing paint to create the design she wanted. You can visit her blog for a step by description of the process.

If you are an individual or and organization and you would like private lessons in stained glass please get in touch with me for a quote. Also if you are interested in attending one of my evening classes visit my classes page for dates, times, and costs.

University of Sunderland’s Alumni Award

Posted on January 2, 2012 by crisschaney

I have recently completed a commission for the University of Sunderland’s Alumni Association. The Alumni Award celebrates and honours Sunderland graduates who have gone on to make a difference in the world either in their careers, community involvement, philanthropy, or by displaying meritorious heroism.

This year they wanted a custom design base on the University’s logo, but not just a direct copy of it. So taking inspiration from some of the design elements in the campus buildings I went for this.

If you have any awards or commissions you would like made in glass go ahead and contact me to discuss the options.

The Big Picture, Community Artwork for Sunderland

Posted on September 28, 2011 by crisschaney

For the past couple months I have been collaborating with two other local artists from other disciplines to create, a piece of community artwork.

From 3rd October 2011 until the 16th October 2011 Sunderland Museum & Winter Gardens will play host to one of Sunderland’s largest collaborative pieces of artwork. The Big Picture project was specifically developed to encourage
as many people as possible to create artwork in a similar theme to show the massive variety of responses individuals can have.

Three local artists from very different disciplines Criss Chaney an American glass artist based in Sunderland, Liz Shaw a ceramicist and entrepreneur, and Jo Howell fine artist owner of Maverickart, stopped around 150 people on a busy
Friday in the Bridges shopping centre in July to get them creating their very own small artworks. Supported by Starbucks, The Bridges, Creative Cohesion and Sunderland Council, the project took the theme of Summer and encouraged participants to create a 3” x 3” tile in any of the art mediums mentioned.

The response was phenomenal, with some people choosing to stick around to make a tile in all 3 mediums! For 2 wonderful weeks the tiles will be shown altogether creating The Big Picture which you can see between the Museum’s opening hours Monday to Saturday 10am until 5pm, and Sunday 2pm until 5pm.

Due to the resounding success and number of participants, plans are being put into place to develop the project for 2012 in a Sports theme to coincide with the Olympic Games. So if you missed out making a tile this time, don’t worry there is always next year!