Robert Lee Fritz has worked with glass for over 25 years. He specializes in creating hand-blown crystal paperweights, vases, and sculptures on which he carves silhouettes of cranes (the symbol of long life and good fortune), herons, hawks, and other midwestern birds.

Each piece that I create is a story that I’m telling: stories of family, stories of journeys, stories of relationships.

He incorporates patterns of dichroic glass into much of his work. Each dichroic piece has a microscopic layer of a variety of materials including titanium, silicon, or magnesium, which reflects three distinct colors when viewed from different angles.

Fritz has created artwork for numerous corporate clients, including Jet Blue, the International Animation Festival of Ottawa Canada, the Federal Reserve Bank, the American Rehabilitation Association, Genworth Financial, and the Chicago Foundation for Women.

His works have been well received in internationally with exhibitions at Tokyo Crafts Expo and International Exhibition of Glass in Kanazawa. Fritz’s glass has been presented as gifts to the Prime Minister of Japan and the U.S. Ambassador to Japan. U.S. Senators Ted Kennedy, Tom Harkin, and Ron Wyden also own freeblown glasswork by the Illinois artist.

The artist is widely represented in private and public collections throughout the United States and Europe. His crystal artwork is in the permanent collection of Glasmuseum Schiedam in Ebeltoft, Denmark and has also been featured twice in New Glass Review, a publication of the Corning Glass Museum in New York.

Robert will be a guest artist at the Xn-trix studio.