“I think of myself as an artist who is enthusiastic about architecture, color, and light...I feel free to create my own symbols that at once have meaning in their elegance as graphics and at once maintain the sense that language and lettering can lead one into other consciousnesses and cultures.” Eastern ideograms, marble ruins, the cosmos: these are the things that inspire glass sculptor, Toland Sand, and fuel his exploration of what can be done in and with glass. Sand’s artistic curiosity in his over 35 years as a glass sculptor has grown in parallel with his own self-discovery through spiritual teachings which are reflected in his work and connect him to the mysteries of the universe.

Born in Berkeley, California to a father in the CIA, Sand spent his childhood on the move, living in such far and away places as Taiwan and Greece. He didn’t think of a career in art until in 1977, by chance, a friend gave Sand his stained glass business. Inspired by artists such as Isamu Noguchi, David Smith, Henry Moore, Mark Rothko, and Kandinsky, and settled in rural New Hampshire, Sand decided to learn glass sculpting, developing his skillset throughout the modern glass movement. Beginning as a glassblower in his home studio, Sand later moved into sandblasting, working with more dynamic stained glass, and eventually began creating complex sculptures.

The mainstay of Sand’s work is optical crystal, leaded and non-leaded, as well as dichroic coated glass, tinted adhesive, and acrylic paints. Each piece begins with paper, pencil, ruler, and compass. Sand does not use heat to create his sculptures. Instead,

every piece is worked by hand using many of the same techniques one would use to shape stone. Sand looks for balance, harmony, and symmetry, with an accent of deconstructed form, in his finished works.

Sand’s work has been featured in the museum collections of the Bergstrom-Mahler Museum of Glass, the Albrecht-Kemper Museum of Art, the Chattanooga Museum of Art, the Imagine Museum, and the University of Michigan Art Museum and has been exhibited at numerous shows across the United States since 1982. Since 2016, Sand has worked out of a studio in Carmel Valley, California which was built 75 years ago, by his grandfather.