Paedra Bramhall (B 1942) American, Glass Bubble Sculpture. Titled "Inferno." Signed and dated "October 28, 1985."  

Size: 9 1/2 x 9 1/2 x 9 in. 

#2402 . 

Paedra Bramhall was born Peter Bramhall in Bridgewater, Vermont in 1942. As a child her father, who played the piano to accompany silent films in local theaters, encouraged her in both music and painting. She attended the private Tilton Boarding School in New Hampshire, where she first discovered photography. In 1962 she took her first official art classes at Valparaiso University, using an oxy-acetylene welding torch to begin cutting and welding steel sculptures she exhibited at local outdoor art fairs. In 1964 she transferred to the Aspen School of Contemporary Art to study under Harvey Littleton (B 1922), often referred to as “the father of the Studio Glass Movement.” A year later Bramhall began a five-year program at the Cleveland Institute of Art, working in wood, clay, and steel, as well as casting pieces in bronze and aluminum. During the summer of 1969 Bramhall built her first studio (a tin roof with Homasote sides) in Vermont, with two primitive glass furnaces. As there was no electric service in the area, she bought a diesel generator and enlisted the help of Herb Babcock, a fellow student from the Institute. Both of them earned immediate recognition for their art, drawing the attention of contemporaries like Dale Chihuly. Bramhall graduated in 1970 and began building her own home in nearby Bridgewater Hollow, Vermont, creating a three floor villa with sixty-five windows she designed and framed herself. Her success encouraged numerous other glassblowers to move to Vermont, creating an artistic community referred to as “the hippies in the woods blowing glass.” By the late 1980s she had made a significant name for herself professionally, and after four failed marriages she eventually came out as transgender, dropping the name Peter at this point. The focus on her male-to-female transition also was the catalyst for her moving away from glass and beginning to experiment with other mediums and artforms, including painting and writing. From 1993 to 1997 she focused solely on the creation of her opus, a monumental bronze fountain called “Tabletop,” and in the new Millennium she began to embrace glasswork again, with her first full installation in 2002 called “Altar to the Feminine Divine.” Paedra has continued to make ever-more controversial work in recent decades, and has been acknowledged as an early voice in the arts community for transgender rights as well as a pivotal artist in the history of glassmaking.

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