Nicholas Kekic was born in Canandaigua, New York in 1972 into a glassmaking family. His grandfather worked at an industrial glass makings facility for General Electric for forty-two years and his father, Thomas, was an artist, teacher and craftsman who helped start the glass program at Rochester Institute of Technology during the 60’s. Kekic grew up during the early studio glass movement in America and was surrounded by hand-made objects and people using raw and natural materials. His rich heritage led him to begin experimenting with glass at an early age. He now creates colorful and functional objects such as cups, vases, and bowls. His works hold sculptural aspects and present a modern décor broadcasting lively colors such as ruby orange, saffron, lime, emerald green and turquoise. Furthermore, his glass exposes a handmade creative expression that adds warmth, color, and a human touch to an industrialized world.
Nick emphasizes the glassmaking process, “glassblowing, for me has become a process of taking this super hot liquid and freezing it to room temperature in a controlled but sometimes precarious balancing act of heat, gravity, timing and human intervention.” Some examples of Nick’s eclectic work include wine decanters, slanted vases which roll around in circles in order to facilitate wine’s breathing process, and “squarbles,” square-shaped marbles with glass blown designs inside that can be used as paperweights, stocking stuffers, and worry stones.
At the age of nineteen, Nick began attending the Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina. There he took a beginner’s glassblowing class and discovered the importance of the creative process which brings the objects to life. Through practicing his newly learned techniques, Kekic explored relationships with light, fluidity, and color, “it was there that I developed a new relationship with glass, one where I began to rediscover the value of finely crafted handmade things, not only as useful and beautiful objects but valuable for the one gets in making them.” Nick went on to operate a private glass blowing studio in Baskerville NC, work at North River Glass in Shelburne Falls, MA, and also assist glassblower, John Chiles in Weston, VT. He and his wife, Tamasin, opened Tsuga Studios in Chester, VT in 2000, where he continues to create and display his glassworks.