Rik Allen and Shelley Muzylowski Allen have been very busy. From Star, North Carolina, where they were the featured artists at Starworks’ Firefest, they returned to their home state of Washington for the installation of the second of two massive public sculptures in downtown Bellevue. 

Somehow Allen and Muzylowski Allen also found time to create new glass work for their upcoming joint show at Blue Rain Gallery in Santa Fe—and to talk to me about it. 

Muzylowski Allen is a multimedia visual artist with a focus on hot glass sculpture that explores the universal iconography of animals and how humans respond to their condition and inherent traits. 

Rik Allen, Pulsaria, glass, silver and steel base, 16 x 17½ x 7"

“By suspending creatures in moments of tension and recalling myths and legends through their forms, I hope to convey the place occupied and importance that different species have had over time,” says Muzylowski Allen. Her work is informed by her natural surroundings in rural Skagit Valley, Washington, which she studies closely through observation, drawing and sculpting “in order to elevate their presence and create contemplative scenes that call out the fragile nature of animal species,” she explains.

Her recent body of work includes a selection of horse sculptures. “The equine form has long resonated with me,” she says, adding that she spent many summers around them on her extended family’s farm. “I feel like it is a cellular connection. I wasn’t much interested in riding. I wanted just to be with the horses and to record their form, capturing their essence and the emotional effect it had on people.” 

Rik Allen, Sigmuretitti Bellessi Capri, blown glass and silver, 15½ x 13½ x 5"

Her piece Chalcedony Horse is named after a kind of glass made of silver that has the ability to exhibit a rainbow of hues. It was first made in Venice to imitate natural stone. “The more you heat this glass and cool it down and reheat it, the colors become even more varied,” she says. “It is quite rare to come across a crucible of chalcedony glass. I felt very fortunate that the [Henry Ford Museum] had the recipe.” Muzylowski Allen found it serendipitous when she realized she had the perfect piece of chalcedony rock to match the horse for the base. In addition to the stone and glass, Muzylowski Allen often incorporates varied organic materials like horse and human hair, wood, glass and bone beads, leather, twine and many different metals, creating a kaleidoscope of contrast.

Grey Into Blueis graal, a type of decorative glass on which a design is carved, engraved or etched on a parison of colored glass, which is then reheated and cased in a thick layer of transparent glass of a different color, and inflated. Muzylowski Allen explains that the color variations begin as powdered glass and that she sifts onto the glass bubble while it’s hot, layer by layer. Then in a multi-stage process, it is cooled down to room temperature so she can reverse engrave the details of the features. The glass is then heated back up to finish sculpting the form. “Both of these horses are rearing to capture a moment’s energy of a horse,” she says. “The specific title of this piece is about color and emotions and the transition of gray into blue—metaphorically skies.”

Shelley Muzylowski Allen, Chalcedony Horse, blown, hand sculpted glass, horsehair, Mookaite and leather, 24 x 20 x 9"

In addition to her equine pieces, Muzylowski Allen will also be showing a near life size swan with its reflection and raindrops, a life size stag with a water pool, possibly a few new paintings, and some collaborative pieces with her husband.

Muzylowski Allen and Allen have been married for nearly 26 years and, while the two do collaborate—as they did on the newly installed public sculptures—they proactively keep their artistic identities distinct. 

Whereas Muzylowski Allen draws from the natural around her, her husband's work is evocative of fantastical spacecraft from the cosmos and creatures from 20,000 leagues under the sea. 

Rik Allen and Shelley Muzylowski Allen, Sticken, Orchard Octopus; Arboculus Pomollusca Rex, 2023, bronze and stainless steel. 

“I don’t describe my work as steampunk, though I understand the connection to some of the construction,” says Allen in response to the association this viewer made. “The rocket ship vessels often portray exploration, often singularly, with a Jules Verne-like aesthetic, or some vision of futurism from another arch of history. The vessels, to me, have a connection both to machine-like vessels and an organism of nature, including human.”

His pieces Sigmuretitti Bellessi Capri and Pulsariaare from a body of work that emerged after spending time with marine biologists on the Salish Sea, evaluating the microbial life in the sea, specifically the phytoplankton. “These organisms are the backbone of marine life, and have an enormous variety in shapes, some looking curiously like ships to me,” he says. “These pieces have a connection to those life forms, as well as embody a flagellum-like propulsion.” 

Shelley Muzylowski Allen, Grey into Blue, blown, hand sculpted and engraved glass, horsehair and glacier green quartzite, 29 x 21 x 7"

Both works are sculpted blown glass, with a veneer of pure silver foil that is applied while the glass is hot. They are burnished and glass color is added and nested into the surface. 

“Shelley Muzylowski Allen and Rik Allen beckon viewers into a realm where artistry meets exploration, and where the strength of animals converges with the wonders of space travel and the delicate balance of our natural world,” says Blue Rain marketing director Leah Garcia. “Their collective oeuvre embodies a profound connection to both the enduring elegance of the cosmos and the fragility of our earthly ecosystems.” 

New Glass Works opens with a reception on June 14 from 5 to 7 p.m. and remains on view through June 28.  —

Blue Rain Gallery 544 S. Guadalupe Street • Santa Fe, NM 87501 • (505) 954-9902 • vwww.blueraingallery.com 

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