Flo Perkins

Flo Perkins is a pioneering American glass artist whose dynamic work merges botanical motifs with bold sculptural innovation. Trained at the University of California, Los Angeles (MFA, 1981) and the Philadelphia College of Art (BFA, 1974), she has cultivated a decades-long career defined by technical dexterity and an idiosyncratic visual language. Based in Pojoaque, New Mexico, Perkins draws inspiration from desert flora and the hybrid forms found in nature, resulting in pieces that balance whimsy, precision, and tactile intensity.

Perkins has exhibited extensively across the U.S. and internationally, with solo exhibitions at Chiaroscuro Contemporary, the Grounds for Sculpture in New Jersey, and the Albuquerque Museum. Her work resides in prominent public and private collections, including the Corning Museum of Glass, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Museum of Glass in Tacoma, and Microsoft Corporation. A frequent participant in key glass conferences and a visiting artist at institutions like Pilchuck School and Penland, she has also contributed meaningfully to the education and dialogue surrounding contemporary glass practices​.

At once playful and rigorous, Perkins’s practice reframes ornament and utility through a feminist lens and the poetics of transformation. Her sculptural installations—most notably Three Sisters, a large public work representing indigenous agricultural knowledge—speak to a reverence for natural systems and ancestral knowledge. With deep roots in the Studio Glass Movement and an eye toward reinventing tradition, Perkins continues to shape the discourse on materiality, craft, and the American landscape