The process of glass making is an ancient and enduring art born from sand, ash and limestone. In an inferno of heat reaching over 2000 degrees Fahrenheit, a highly synchronized dance of heat, gravity and breath, shapes take form.
Throughout the decades of collecting glass art, Florence Lee Wellons and her husband Harry A. “Bert” Wellons (M ’61) watched a medium evolve and an art form flourish. What they saw at VCUarts moved them to do something lasting about it.
Through their collecting practices, the Wellons were well aware of VCUarts professor and internationally renowned glass artist and sculptor Jack Wax and his stature in the field. Wax blends traditional glassblowing with meticulous mixed-media sculptural techniques and his signature “imbrication,” in which he uses overlapping elements to create texture and depth with patterns resembling organic forms like fish scales or roof tiles. He challenges students and utilizes the hotshop to create abstract, contemplative sculptures based on personal narrative and visual concepts.
“When enjoying a piece of glass art, the technical skill involved in its creation underlies the aesthetic pleasure,” Florence Lee said. “It demands an understanding of the medium and how it speaks with the creative goal of the artist.”
For collectors so deeply invested in the art form to turn that passion into an endowment is a testament to the glassworking program’s impact and reach. The Wellons admired what Wax created and they wanted its impact to be sustainable through the years.
In 2023, they initiated their support of the VCUarts glassworking program in the Department of Craft and Material Studies. In 2025, the Wellons established the Wellons Family Professorship in Glass Art, which builds on their earlier gift, to encourage both a deeper understanding of glass work and its techniques as well as how it reflects the artist. Professorships are the highest honor a university may bestow on its faculty, rewarding excellence that begets excellence. This fund will support a faculty member in the program, recognizing the achievements, aesthetics and creative goals of the school’s finest professors.
With its rich legacy in glass—VCUarts was just the second art school in the United States to initiate hot glass into the fine arts curriculum and establish a concentration in glass.The school’s glassworking program is dedicated to the use of glass as a medium of artistic expression and to the appreciation of glass as an international art medium.
Somewhere in the glow of a furnace in 1969, world-renowned cast glass artist Kent Ipsen established the VCUarts glassworking program that went from a glowing ember into a blazing national presence. An internationally acclaimed artist known for his sculptural works in cast glass, Ipsen exhibited his work in venues from the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Brooklyn Museum to the Corning Museum of Glass and the Vatican Museum.
When Wax arrived at VCUarts in 2002, he began significantly expanding the glassworking program. At the time, glassworking itself seemed to be fading, a remnant of pre-industrial craft culture overtaken by machines. Few would have predicted what came next.
Wax opened the program to graduate students, tirelessly recruiting more students and pushing the curriculum toward rigor and ambition. Within five years, applications for the graduate program had grown to 22. National recognition followed. Today, VCU’s glassworking program is widely regarded as one of the best in the country, largely because of what Wax built.
Wax compares glassworking to playing in an orchestra. Every musician must master their instrument through years of practice, discipline and the craft. But no matter how skilled the individual player, the music only comes alive in relationship to others. In the hotshop, it works the same way. The web of relationships between students and faculty mentors is not just part of the experience, it is inseparable from the art itself.
“It’s really important that we have a sense of community,” he said. “Community is central to what we do because working with glass is not an individual effort.” Dr. and Mrs. Wellons wanted to ensure the VCUarts glassworking program remains a nationally and internationally recognized place for the next generation of artists to study, flourish and build their community.“The students do [this work] because they love it. And you see that,” Wax said.
“They give over their hearts and souls, coming in at 4 a.m. and staying until midnight—caring and giving and being responsible human beings at the age of 20. They build a community and take care of each other.”
VCUarts glass faculty have built a rich academic environment to nurture young artists, designers and artisans. Thanks to the Wellons Family Endowed Professorship in Glass Art, students will continue to learn the centuries-old art of glassmaking, explore the medium’s inherent properties and hone their skills in the hotshop all in pursuit of their own limitless artistic expression.
