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Slate Grove, originally from Fort Dodge, discovered a love for the art of glass in college and is now the Glass Workshop Master at Aalto University in Finland.
When Slate Grove graduated from Fort Dodge Senior High in 1997, he had no idea that almost 25 years later he would live 4,545 miles away, running the glass studio at one of the top schools. of art to the world.
But that’s exactly where it is today.
Grove moved to Espoo, Finland to work as a glass shop master at Aalto University, in 2020 – a move that began more than a decade ago.
When he graduated, Grove wanted to be a high school physics teacher, inspired by a high school physics teacher he had at FDSH. He spent a semester at a community college in California before returning to Fort Dodge to attend Iowa Central Community College.
While taking classes at Iowa Central, Grove also worked as a tattoo artist at Permanent Collections in Fort Dodge.
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Slate Grove, originally from Fort Dodge, now runs the Glass Workshop at Aalto University in Finland.
“I have always loved art” he said. “One of my older brothers was really good at drawing, so I kinda idolized him like most little brothers do.”
He said he didn’t remember taking art classes in high school, but started taking art classes at Iowa Central.
A few years later, his then-girlfriend convinced him to apply to the Cleveland Institute of Art, where he ended up getting a scholarship to attend. He continued to tattoo in Cleveland during the first semesters of art school.
Growing up in a family with a long history with automobiles and drag racing, Grove saw himself becoming an industrial designer, eventually designing cars in Detroit.
“I never even thought about the way the glass was formed” he said. “I had never watched videos or understood what glassblowing was.”
So, out of curiosity, Grove decided to enroll in a glassblowing course at the Cleveland Institute of Art, and just weeks after the course started, he decided he was going to become a glass specialist.
Shortly before Grove began his graduate studies at Illinois State University, he was running a North Carolina glass studio at the Penland School of Crafts. A couple of students from Finland came through the glass studio and got to know them. When one of the students returned to Finland to teach at a technical school in the “The oldest continuously operating glass village in Finland”, she invited Grove to come to Finland to teach in the summer of 2010.
“When I came here to teach, it was what would be considered a hot sculpting class, so it’s really not like making vases or bowls or mugs or anything like that. “ he said. “More sculpture, and very little of it has ever been done or taught in Finland.”
Grove said it was exciting for her first time to go abroad and teach something new and different about the glass landscape in Finland.
He returned to Finland the next two summers to collaborate with a well-known designer and glassblower on a new set of the designer’s work.
During these trips to Finland, Grove fell in love with the European country.
“The people, the countryside, the atmosphere, all of those things were really, really wonderful”, he said. “So I was sort of looking for a reason and a way to come back here. “
When the position he now holds at Aalto University opened last year, Grove jumped at the opportunity to work at one of Northern Europe’s top-ranked universities and one of the top ranked art schools in the world.
Prior to returning to Finland in 2020, Grove was also a professor and ran the glass studio at Ball State University from 2016 to 2019, and did the same at Illinois State from 2019 to 2020.
Grove’s master’s thesis was titled “Everyday heroes” and inspired by the blue collar industries and workers he saw and knew as a child in Fort Dodge. He obtained his Masters of Fine Arts in 2013.
“I have made a lot of tools and glass objects that people work with when working with their hands” he said.
He used clear glass to symbolize workers like cleaning staff, mechanics, plumbers, and other people many of whom don’t notice they are there until they need them. His work was featured in a glass art magazine published in New York and a few months later he was contacted by the studio director of Yoko Ono, who wanted Grove to make glass art for her. .
“I think we made seven or eight of these glass hammers for her,” Grove said.
He continued to do glass art series for Ono over the following years, but he never had the opportunity to meet her in person. The glass art pieces have been exhibited in its galleries in Tokyo, Manhattan and London.
“I still have all the checks she sent me with Yoko Ono Lennon printed on the check, which I just kept because I thought it was cool.” Grove said.
Grove was formally trained in the art of glass, but he also spends a great deal of time carving and working with steel and wood. During his undergraduate years, he also obtained a minor in jewelry.
“I like working with glass, but it’s not always the right material for what I’m trying to say” he said.
Three or four years ago he started melting pencils to make AK-47 bullets.
“To kind of talk, like the current problems and teach children about guns”, explains the artist. “What is the right age? What do we teach them when we teach them about firearms? “
He explained that these kinds of conceptual ideas don’t really make sense with glass, so he used his knowledge of sculpture and mold making to create the silicone molds for the balls and used his oven at home. to melt the pencils in the mold.
Grove draws inspiration for his art from many places, including current events and the political landscape.
“Maybe not always political, but it’s always something to do with the world I live in, what surrounds me and what happens”, he said.
Being an American in Finland forced Grove to make some adjustments, but he said it hadn’t been that difficult.
“Everyone here speaks amazingly good English, especially in the capital region” he said.
There are a few things that are similar in most European countries, Grove said, like houses and apartments are smaller, and even refrigerators are smaller.
Some of the things Grove at Home misses the most are barbecuing and grilled sweet corn. He said he also missed seeing his mother, who now lives in California, but said they spoke to each other all the time.
Despite being thousands of miles from his hometown, Grove keeps in touch via social media.
“I love looking at Facebook for stuff from Fort Dodge,” he said. “There are so many really talented athletes who are just amazing people.”
The man who held the position of glass shop master before Grove had been in that position for about 25 years, Grove said. He said he felt fairly secure in his new job and planned to stay there for a while.
“I would love to stay in Finland and I think I will” he said. “But I don’t get attached to anywhere either.”
Grove fondly remembers his childhood in Fort Dodge and the dreams he had in high school.
“I have realized over the past 10 years maybe that I am still a physics teacher” he said. “I just do it with glass instead of being in a classroom with a book. I love what Fort Dodge gave me in terms of the small town feel with friends and friendly faces, even with people I didn’t know. And I think that has helped me to be as successful as I have been in other parts of the country and the world because there is something about the way I was raised and the place where I was raised which I think will stay with us forever.
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