Introducting Hank Murta Adams

Hank Murta Adams (also known as brother to our Artistic Director, Abbey Adams!), has created beautiful glass pieces for our shows in the past, include the stars hung above the Theophilus North set, which are now hung in the upper lobby of our Main Stage.  He is currently creating a huge backdrop of glass and steel for our upcoming production of Legacy of Light.  Read on to learn more about him!

Hank Murta Adams, Studio Creative Director of Wheaton Arts and Cultural Center
Hank Adams was a student of Dale Chihuly at the Rhode Island School of Design. He graduated from Rhode Island School of Design with a B.F.A. in painting in 1978, and continued his education at Tennessee Technological University, Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina and Pilchuck Glass School in Washington. While continuing to work as an independent artist, Hank also served as head designer for the Blenko Glass Company for six years. Adams has also worked consistently over the years as an educator at schools and universities ranging from the Toledo Museum School; UrbanGlass in Brooklyn, NY; Univ. of Hawaii; the Center for Creative Studies, in Detroit; the Chicago Art Institute, the Ox-Bow School in Saugatuck, MI; the Pilchuck School in Stanwood, WA; and most recently as a visiting professor at Middlebury College, VT. In his current role as Studio Creative Director at Wheaton Arts and Cultural Center,  Hank facilitates numerous individual and collective projects for a diverse artist community, while serving as an educator and mentor for numerous young artists working as assistants and interns.

Adams has been awarded three Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, and was recipient of an Individual Artist Fellowship award from the New York State Arts Council. He was awarded a Fellowship at the Creative Glass Center of America in 2001, and is a member of the Creative Glass Center of America Advisory Board. His work has been featured in numerous one-man exhibitions ranging from J&L Lobmeyr Glass in Vienna, Austria; Remnant: Hank Adams, at The Arts Center of the Capital Region, Troy, NY; the Elliot Brown Gallery in Seattle; Heller Gallery in NYC,  the Kohler Arts Center in Sheboygan, WI and the Hunterdon Museum of Art in NJ. Adams’ work was also selected for Creativity and Collaboration: Pilchuck Glass School at 30 in Seattle, WA, in 2000. Other group shows range from the triennial traveling exhibition, Americans in Glass, to World Glass Now, held in 1988 at the Hokkaido Museum of Modern Art, Sapporo, Japan; and the Glass Skin, a traveling exhibit organized by the Corning Museum of Glass.

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