Glass art inspired by nature, and nurtured through form and line by Jean Twombly, stained glass and mosaic artist.
Woodworking and marquetry arts created by Peter Tourin, renowned musical instrument maker.
Divided Waves. A wall panel inspired by decorative shoji screens of Japan 21" wide by 41" long. Sapele mahogany, mirror with live edge spalted maple, and stained glass.
A bird of paradise - Pua Manu - blooms in my garden against a background of darker leaves
A custom wood marquetry panel in mango and sapele provides cover for utilities on a lanai in Wailea
As artists we are drawn to explore the principles of symmetry and free form found in the natural world - mountains, the sea and sand, lakes and forest scapes, and the creatures around us. As trained musicians with professional performing careers, we also seek ways to visualize musical sound.
Waterscapes: looking through the paper birches at the lake in spring.
Kiawe root and stained glass sculpture. 2025
An outdated mirrored set of closet doors is transformed to meditative state with rice paper and an artful figured sapele wood design. 2019
Waterscapes: a nautilus shell is washed up on shore and captured in glass. 2023
A male bluebird soars above a grassy meadow in Vermont: a 20" hanging panel, 2022 commission.
Earthscapes: a monarch butterfly and caterpillar grace a field of milkweed in late summer. Stained and dichroic glass mosaic. 2024
Waterscapes: a perfect "flying wave" breaks against the coastline in Hawai'i. 2023
Waterscapes: A moment captured from my kayak. 2023
J.S. Bach's Little Fugue in g as it would look in color, with homage to Mondrian. 2021
Musicians at rest during a rehearsal break. Cello, violin, and harpsichord captured in a stained glass window for Arcadia Players, Northampton, MA.
Decorative head on an English Renaissance viola da gamba by Peter Tourin.
Music at Work. A violin appears to fly apart from exhilaration - design by Stephen D. Twombly.
Earthscapes: stained glass, dichroic glass and marble mosaic. A monarch dries its wings against a sunlit wall. 2024
Angel musician after Fra Angelico
Waterscapes: Celebrating New England in Fall.
A collaboration creating artwork in wood and glass since 1995.
Peter Tourin began his career as a harpsichord apprentice with Frank Hubbard, then worked with luthier Donald Warnock. By the 1990s he had built a world-wide reputation as a renowned builder of beautiful Renaissance and Baroque stringed instruments. Funded by the grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, Peter researched historic viole da gamba in museums and private collections in North America and Europe in the 1980s, which enabled him to develop a body of fine instruments that reflected the historic designs of various cultures and centuries. These 125 instruments are prized by performing musicians in many countries today.
Currently working with ecologically-sourced exotic woods, Peter brings high design to homescapes with one-of-a-kind projects from his workshops in Maui and New Hampshire.
Jean Twombly has been creating glass art since the mid 1990s. Trained in the techniques used by the glass masters of the early 20th century, she infuses modern sensibilities into her glass designs, challenging the solid nature of glass to move into curve, color, light and dimension. Her work is inspired by nature and by sound, and in service of this inspiration, she looks for the architecture of a subject and distills it to discover its underlying essence and simplicity.
In her Waterscapes series, she develops form and line into an expression of waves, wind ruffled lakes and quiet ponds. In the Music at Work series, she seeks to convey with color, form and line the experience of hearing music. In the Earthscapes series, she molds the diverse textures, transparencies and colors of glass into an experience that mirrors a moment in nature.
Her work can be seen in art shows and galleries in New England and in Hawaii, including Center for the Arts Lake Sunapee Region, the Naturally New England Art Show, and at her studio in Kihei, HI.