John Geci’s current body of glass art focuses on cane, and includes solid-colored medium “Eclipse” bowls. Credit: Tom Mills.

“The more I work in glass, the simpler the forms become,” John Geci says. The piece that best defines his current aesthetic is a double-walled “Eclipse” bowl. Practically transparent, it’s defined by smooth contours. “In every piece I create, I try to show how the glass behaves when it’s molten,” Geci explains. “I want every piece to have static mobility.”

Geci has always had an instinct to create beautiful, functional objects. He grew up in rural Connecticut, studying ceramics in high school, but it wasn’t until he got to Hartwick College in Oneonta, N.Y., that he encountered a glass studio.

One class was all it took to convince Geci to switch mediums. “Glass seems to perfectly meld my love of art and creating with sport and physical activity,” he says. After graduating from college in 1994, he took a road trip, ending up at the Penland School of Crafts the following spring. He spent the next five years working at Penland and for dozens of local glass artists, intermittently renting a studio to develop his own work.

From there, Geci landed one of the first artist residencies at the EnergyXchange in Burnsville, N.C., where he perfected his skills and developed a body of work from 2001 to 2004. When the residency ended, he struck out on his own, officially launching J. Geci Glass in May 2005.

Above all, Geci’s work is an ode to molten glass and the skill it takes to ply it. “I don’t have happy accidents,” he says. Instead, he plans colors and patterns carefully. But that doesn’t mean he isn’t open to trying new techniques or forms. “I like to think that my work has a Darwinian evolution to it,” he says. “I try to accentuate the aspects of previous work I feel were successful or interesting.”