PAUL MESSINK

Paul Messink is an award-winning artist and international instructor working in kiln-formed glass, who draws on prior drawing and painting experience to create hand-painted, multi-layered glass panels that present nature in deep dimension. While mostly self-taught, he has been fortunate to learn from artists such as Susan Taylor Glasgow, Richard LaLonde, Mark Salsbury, Annette Baron, and Don Schneider. He now teaches his own unique techniques through a 4-course recorded video series.  Before the Covid pandemic, he traveled extensively to teach throughout the US, Canada, and Mexico, as well as in the UK and Norway.

Since COVID, his subject matter has changed substantially – from landscapes to geometric patterns and abstracts.  He uses the same painting and firing techniques but focuses on a more contemporary style.

Messink was awarded “First Place” in 2022 and “Best of Show” in 2020 at the Workhouse Glass National Exhibit (Lorton, VA), and multiple awards (including “First Place” in 2022) at Members Exhibitions of the Association of Glass Artists of Southern California. In 2017 he won a First Place award at GATHERING: Contemporary Glass from the Heartland, sponsored by the Indiana Glass Art Alliance, and in 2014 he won “Best in Show” at the same competition.  In 2016, he was awarded a Purchase Award in the Art Comes Alive 2016 competition (Cincinnati, OH), and in 2015 he won the “People’s Choice Award in Glass” at the 3rd Brea Clay and Glass Exhibit, in Brea CA.  In 2014 he received a category award in The Glass Prize 2014, sponsored by Warm Glass UK, was awarded “Multi-Media Artist of the Year” in the Art Comes Alive 2013 competition (Cincinnati, OH), and won “Best in Glass” in the 2012 and 2014 Royal Oak Clay, Glass and Metal show (Royal Oak, MI).

Messink has participated in numerous group shows around the country.