During a college visit to the Rhode Island School of Design, Toots Zynsky was entranced by the collaboration of glassmakers moving in a concert-like form. And so, she was drawn to glass as a medium to explore her love of dance and music. Her work still often coincides with her fascination of sound and movement, as music translates to visual color for her. Utilizing this natural gift, she uses glass thread to illustrate her experiences and emotions in her art.

Among her awards, she has been a recipient of two National Endowment for the Arts grants and the Pell Award for Excellence in the Arts in 2006. Zynsky’s work is represented in more than 70 museum collections around the world. In the words of Tina Oldknow, former senior curator of modern and contemporary glass at the Museum: “She is one of a small, core group of pioneering artists who made contemporary glass a worldwide phenomenon, and her distinctive kiln-formed vessels enjoy widespread popularity for their often magnificent, and always unique, explorations in color.”

In 2016, Zynsky was selected as the third artist for the Specialty Glass Residency program at The Corning Museum of Glass and Corning Incorporated. During her year-long residency, Zynsky worked extensively at Corning Incorporated’s research facility Sullivan Park experimenting with fusing, stretching, slumping, and cracking two types of transparent hard glass.