Will Bowyer | Glass Artist
An extension of For Us, It’s Never Just an Object, Series Made By: Kawartha Lakes’ 2026 Lindsay Exhibition series.
At the Lindsay Exhibition, one of Will Bowyer’s glass pieces invited us to stop and look. Its shape, colour and relationship with the light were immediately visible. Almost everything that went into making it was harder to see.
One finished piece, titled "Fury", opens a much larger story about how a craft is learned, practised, shared—and transformed into a creative life.
Glass as material and medium
Glass begins as a material with possibilities, but it does not tell the artist what to make. Will is drawn to the experience of working with it while it is hot and moving. He describes molten glass as seeming alive, “as it dances on the end of a pipe.”
That description tells us something a finished object cannot. Glassblowing is a relationship between maker and material. Will has an idea of where a piece might go, but he must also pay attention to what is happening in front of him and respond as it changes.
This is one reason glass interests us at Made By. An object can show us an outcome. Talking with its maker begins to reveal the thinking, learning and work behind it.
Heat, colour and transformation
The photographs of Will at work show a stage most of us never encounter when we hold a finished glass object. The material is hot, moving and still becoming something. Its final shape has yet to be settled.
Colour and light also belong to this story. A finished piece can look different as we move around it or place it near a window. Those qualities draw our eyes to the object, but they can also lead us back to questions about how it was made. What choices shaped the piece? What changed during the making? What happened exactly as Will hoped, and what required him to respond differently?
We can look for answers in the work itself, then ask the person who made it.
Tools, timing and practised skill
In glassblowing, Will works with both mind and hands. He must watch the material, use his tools, judge his next move and keep working as the glass changes. He describes the focus as physical as well as mental: his heart races, his brow sweats, and his attention stays with the piece.
Those decisions rest on practise. Will first entered the hot shop at Sheridan College in 1998. Watching glass being worked there made him want to learn the craft, and he spent three years studying it.
A photograph can capture one moment at the bench. It cannot show all the attempts and accumulated knowledge that make that moment possible. That is another history held within the finished piece.
Art, craft and function
What do we call the object once it is finished: art, craft or something made to be used? A glass piece might invite any of those descriptions. Its purpose matters, but so do the choices, skill and imagination that brought it into being.
Will’s working life makes that question particularly interesting. During his years away from glass, he built travel trailers, practiced taxidermy and worked in custom woodworking and cabinetry. He has also made display cabinets, toys and attractions for the Fenelon Falls Museum.
These forms of work produce very different things. Each asks a maker to understand materials, solve problems and work toward a result someone else can see or use. Will’s path reminds us that skill does not always stay within one medium—or fit neatly into one label.
Building a creative practice
After Sheridan, Will’s life and work took him away from glassblowing for many years. The distance did not erase his connection to it. In the statement he shared with us, he writes, “25 years away from glass and still every day I danced with glass in my mind.”
His friend Eduardo later suggested a partnership. Will describes that invitation as the encouragement he needed to pick up the pipe again. He has returned to working with glass through B & B Fenelon Glass.
A creative practice is sometimes described as a straight path: discover a talent, train, make the work, keep going. Will’s story gives us a different path to consider. People build lives, earn a living, care for others, change direction and return to skills they thought they had left behind. The years between can become part of the maker they are now.
Teaching and passing knowledge forward
Will also teaches glassmaking. That brings another dimension to the object in front of us. The knowledge used to make it was learned from others; some of that knowledge can now travel through Will to the people he teaches.
Teaching a craft involves more than showing someone where to place their hands. A learner must begin to recognize what the material is doing, understand why a decision matters and develop confidence through practice. Will’s own words about needing to apply both mind and hands give us a way to understand why that form of learning has mattered so much to him.
Making art in Kawartha Lakes
Will’s glass is part of a living creative community. Here in Kawartha Lakes, an artist can make work, share skills, build a business, form partnerships and give someone else a first encounter with a craft they might one day pursue.
That local story matters to Made By. We want to know what people are making here now, as well as what earlier generations made. We want to see the finished work and understand the lives, decisions and relationships around it.
Look again at the glass piece that brought us here. It carries a form Will made. It also gives us a way into his first encounter with a hot shop, the skills he developed in other materials, a friend’s invitation to return and the knowledge he shares with others today.
For us, it’s never just glass.
Artist’s statement and biographical information supplied by Will Bowyer. Exhibit text prepared by Made By: Kawartha Lakes Museum & Legacy Learning Centre.
Watch for an upcoming exhibit of Will Bowyer's work when Made By: launches it's founding slate of exhibits in it's physical site location.