Image source: Colossal
Paul Stankard battled undiagnosed dyslexia for his entire youth, at one time even graduating at the very bottom of his class. He struggled greatly to identify his life’s calling after this, until he discovered scientific glassblowing, the manual process of creating scientific instruments out of glass for use in laboratories. After working with industrial glass for ten years, he decided to experiment with the creation of glass paperweights.
Stankard beautifully directed a decade of industrial glassworking techniques into the interpretation of flowers, bees, vines, and leaves encased in glass. An art dealer discovered his work and Stankard began to create his art full-time. His pieces now appear in over 60 museums around the world including the Smithsonian, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Louvre.
Check out his beautiful work on Colossal or on his personal website.