Artist Tyler Kimball Creates Glass Wonders
Artist and University of Montana alumnus Tyler Kimball grew up with creativity inherent to his childhood in Kansas City. His dad had studied art, and Kimball participated in loosely run summer camps hosted by a neighborhood artist where kids were able to learn and create.
“I very much grew up in an art community,” Kimball said.
That affinity for art guided Kimball as he decided to attend college. His mother had moved to Montana shortly after his high school graduation, creating the possibility of attending school out West.
“Going to Missouri versus going to Montana, Montana was a bigger thrill for me at 18,” he said of his decision to attend UM.
Kimball made the move to Missoula and studied writing but was able to incorporate his love for art into his education, including the art of stained glass. The UM community turned out to be a perfect fit for Kimball.
“I learned a lot from my classes, but I learned so much just being there and with the people that I was meeting,” he said.
After graduating from UM, he landed a job writing for the Bozeman Daily Chronicle. He kept working with stained glass and it soon grew from a hobby into a calling.
“I really nailed down that I cared more about glass than I did about writing,” he explained.
He moved to Seattle to learn more about glass. There, he began glassblowing and after several years began to dream of his own studio. High property costs on the West Coast inspired him to look closer to his roots back in Kansas City. Kimball also saw an opportunity to help grow the glass community in his hometown.
“That was a big reason for me to come back,” he said. “For people who are interested in glass, I could show them what I had learned over the last 15 years,” he said.
Kimball was able to purchase space to open Monarch Glass Studio where he and his team create custom stained glass for commercial, residential and public projects using a unique method. He is the only artist in the world who creates stained glass on a large scale from furnace glass. Whereas most stained glass artists use glass that is made in factories, Kimball creates the elements that go into the finished product.
The studio stays busy, with recent projects including stained glass for a church in St. Louis, a bar in Manhattan and a newly renovated federal building in Washington, D.C. Kimball also completed the project “Making Connections” for the Lawrence Transit Facility in Kansas. The installation features lines running through circles, evoking the feeling of travel and creating connections along the way. Kimball praises the power of art to transform everyday places into something special.
“It’s what makes communal areas full of life. It makes it somewhere you want to be and gives it personality,” he said. “It can take a place that doesn’t have much going for it and make it important and memorable.”
Kimball lives his dream by creating stunning and unique pieces of glass art and running his own studio. He believes that investing in a career you’re passionate about has the potential to pay off big time.
“Make sure that what you do is not work for you, it’s what you want to do,” he said. “It doesn’t matter what it is, as long as you want it to be great because you care about it.”