Sonja Blomdahl

Sonja Blomdahl bowl at the Tacoma Art Museum

Blomdahl began glassmaking as an undergraduate student during the 1970s. She earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in ceramics from Massachusetts College of Art (Boston) in 1974.[1][2][3] There she studied with glass sculptor Dan Dailey.[1] In 1976 she spent six months studying at the Orrefors glassworks in Sweden, and her work is sometimes associated with Scandinavian design.[2][4] Venetian glass master Checco Ongaro taught Blomdahl the method of double-bubble blowing (or incalmo), for which her work is well known.[4][5]

In 1978, Blomdahl served as a teaching assistant at the Pilchuck Glass School (Stanwood, Washington) for Dan Dailey, where she first watched Checco Ongaro demonstrate the incalmo technique.[3] She has held teaching positions at the Pratt Fine Arts Center in Seattle; Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in Deer Isle, Maine; and the Appalachian Center in Smithville, Tennessee.[2] Blumdahl's first solo exhibition was at the Traver Sutton Gallery in Seattle in 1981.[3] She opened her own studio in Seattle in 1983,[3] which remained open until 2009.[4] Since the late 2000s, she has moved beyond the symmetrical glass vessels she is known for and worked increasingly with architectural forms.[4][6]

Sonja Blomdahl vase at The Tacoma Art Museum

• American Crafts Museum, New York[7][8]
• Clinton Presidential Library and Museum, Little Rock, AR[9]
• Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, NY[10]
• Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts[11]
• Museum of Contemporary Art & Design, New York[12]
• Museum of Decorative Arts, Prague[7]
• Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA[8][13]
• Racine Art Museum, Racine, WI[14]
• Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC[8][15]

2001 U.S. State Dept. Gift, presented by President Bush to the Prime Minister of Sweden
1987 Artists' Trust Fellowship Grant, Washington State
1986 NEA Visual Arts Fellowship Grant

• Dale Chihuly

• Sonja Blomdahl - official website
• Sonja Blomdahl at Island Press, Kemper Museum at Washington University in St. Louis

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Sonja Blomdahl.

• Biskeborn, Susan. Artists at Work: Twenty-Five Northwest Glassmakers, Ceramists, and Jewelers. Anchorage: Alaska Northwest Books, 1990.
• Bullock, Margaret E., and Rock Hushka. Best of the Northwest: Selected Works from Tacoma Art Museum. Tacoma: Tacoma Art Museum, 2012.
• Della, James. Glass, the James Della Collection. [San Francisco]: James Della, 2012.
• Koplos, Janet. "Matters of Mood: The Glass of Sonja Blomdahl." Glass, no. 59 (Spring 1995): 34-41.
• Miller, Bonnie J. "A Meditation of Bowls: Sonja Blomdahl and Her Art." Neues Glas, no 4 (1986): 266-267.
• Nichols, Sarah C., and Davira Spiro Taragin. Contemporary Directions: Glass from the Maxine and William Block Collection. Pittsburgh, Penn: Carnegie Museum of Art, 2002.
• Yelle, Richard Winfred. Glass Art from UrbanGlass. Atglen, PA: Schiffer, 2000.