MICHIKO SAKANO
An internationally renowned master glassblower, Michiko Sakano has been the fabricator for many leading designers including regular collaborations with Lindsey Adelman and Jorge Pardo. Heller Gallery is pleased to present Sakano’s first solo exhibition Droplets, her inaugural lighting collection. The Droplet series was born from her desire to wrest the glass from the dictate of the hardware with which it is commonly combined to create light fixtures. Instead, she has set out to make pieces that feel spontaneous and are about glass, volume and roundness.
Sakano holds a BA in Sculpture from Syracuse University and an MFA from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. Co-founder of One Sixty Glass, a glassblowing studio in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, which she ran from 2000 to 2009, Sakano has been a visiting artist and taught courses at the Cleveland Institute of Art, MIT, New York University, Ohio State University, Tyler School of Arts, University of Wisconsin, UrbanGlass, Pilchuck Glass School, the Penland School of Craft and others in the US, Europe and Japan. In 2023 her work was included in a group exhibition at the new Bedford Art Museum, New Bedford, MA and is held in public collections of the Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, NY and the Museum of Glass in Tacoma, WA. Her work has been featured in multiple art and design publications including The New York Times, Architectural Digest, Elle Décor, Food & Wine, and House and Garden. She lives and works in Brooklyn.
