Paul Stankard, an internationally acclaimed master glass artist, has died at 83

Paul Stankard, 83, of Mantua, Gloucester County, internationally acclaimed pioneering master glass artist, college adjunct instructor, mentor, author, and poet, died Tuesday, Oct. 6, of cancer at Jefferson Washington Township Hospital.

Delighted and mesmerized throughout his life by nature, art, poetry, and teaching, Mr. Stankard combined all four of his passions to forge a 65-year career as an innovative, world renowned glass artist and adjunct college instructor. He specialized in making intricate glass paperweights and what he called “botanicals,” tiny colored glass flowers, fruits, insects, and other evocative figures encased in crystal orbs and blocks.

“I want to make more than a pretty flower in a glass,” Mr. Stankard told The Inquirer in 1988. “I’m trying to communicate feeling, communicate my interest in nature.”

Using rods of colored glass, a gas torch, tweezers, a paddle, and a small oven to fabricate his pieces, Mr. Stankard created tiny flowers and insects so lifelike that many viewers thought they were real. A lifelong naturalist, he learned scientific glassblowing technology at what is now Salem Community College, studied the structure of flowers, and made them the centerpiece of his art.

“I’ve taken all the scientific technology I learned and plugged it into a little glass flower,” he said in 1988. “They’re more sophisticated than most scientific instruments.”

Inquirer art critic Edward J. Sozanski reviewed Mr. Stankard’s creations in a 1990 column and wrote: “Stankard’s flower sculptures are so delicate and artfully crafted that they seem technically improbable, and they’re worth seeing for that reason alone.”

In 2001, Mr. Stankard said: “That’s the magic. If I can fool the eye, that’s success for me.”

“Stankard is considered a living master who translates nature in glass.”

Some of his signature pieces, such as “Honeybee Swarm with Flowers and Fruit” and “Celestial Bouquet,” are routinely showcased at exhibitions and have sold for thousands of dollars. His work continues to be shown in museums, galleries, and private collections around the world.

He also wrote poetry to accompany some of his pieces and told The Inquirer that Camden poet Walt Whitman was “my spiritual mentor.” In 2001, he said: “I’ve been exploring ways to express feelings about nature, to express illusion in nature, for 30 years, and it’s always evolving, always changing.”

Mr. Stankard taught glassmaking classes and organized workshops at Salem Community College, Rowan University, and elsewhere for years. He helped create the glass art associate degree program at Salem, funded a scholarship, and served as artist-in-residence.

He established Salem’s International Flameworking Conference and Contemporary Glass Resource Center. The college named its glass art studio in his honor, and college colleagues said in a tribute: “He was truly one of a kind.”

“I make a lot of failures, which I can rework and experiment with. I learn from them. That’s how I grow.”

Mr. Stankard lived with dyslexia and earned three honorary degrees. He wrote essays and books, including his 2007 autobiography, No Green Berries or Leaves, and 2022’s Inspiration from the Art of Paul J. Stankard.

He won awards from the South Jersey Cultural Alliance and the Glass Art Society, and was active with the American Craft Council and Smithsonian American Art Museum. He was featured on CBS Sunday Morning in 2014 and in the 2024 award-winning documentary film Paul J. Stankard: Flower & Flame.

WheatonArts in Millville sponsors the Paul Stankard Flamework Fellowship. “He was youthful,” former assistant and fellow artist David Graeber said. “He was always pushing things. You knew he was in the room when you heard that laugh.”

Paul Joseph Stankard was born April 7, 1943, in North Attleboro, Mass. His family moved to South Jersey in 1958, and he graduated from Pitman High School in 1961.

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After graduating from Salem Community College in 1963, he made precision glass instruments for Philco-Ford, Rohm & Haas, and other companies. He sold decorative glass novelties and paperweights on the side for years and, encouraged by a local art dealer, left his industrial work in 1971 to go full-time into glass art.

By 1980, inspired by the miniature sculptures he saw in classic 19th-century French paperweights, he introduced his own signature tiny botanicals. “They transcend ornament,“ Sozanski wrote in 1990. ”Besides being colorful and elegant, they express a reverence for life that ultimately is their most noteworthy feature.”

Mr. Stankard married Patricia Ann LaPatrick in 1964, and they had daughters Christine, Pauline, and Katherine, and sons Joseph and Philip. He worked in his home studio and recently joined a men’s Bible study group.

“Dad was defined not just by his craft but by his profound generosity of spirit,” his family said in a tribute. “He walked through life welcoming everyone he encountered, mentoring others, and proving that a positive outlook can carry you through anything.”

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In addition to his wife and children, Mr. Stankard is survived by six grandchildren, three brothers, three sisters, and other relatives. A sister and a brother died earlier.

Services were held earlier.

Donations in his name may be made to Salem Community College, 460 Hollywood Ave., Carneys Point, N.J. 08069.