Soleil Studio Arts
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.
A stained glass mosaic of monarch butterflies and a field of milkweed
An outdated mirrored set of closet doors is transformed to meditative state with rice paper and an artful figured sapele wood design
We are drawn in our work as artisans to explore the principles of symmetry and free form found in the natural world - mountains, the sea and sand, forest and desert scapes, and the creatures around us. As trained musicians with professional performing careers, we also seek ways to visualize musical sound.
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.