Visit to Clifford Rainey’s Studio

by Vivien Hart

GLANC members were delighted to have the opportunity to visit Clifford Rainey’s Napa glass studio in March. Located in a beautiful Napa setting, with a lovely spread of food and drink. It was definitely a cause for celebration to visit Clifford’s new studio. Sadly he lost his home, studio and years of glass artwork during a fire in Napa in 2017. As Clifford put it best “it was like starting with a completely clean slate.”

Clifford Rainey was born in northern Ireland where he was a linen damask designer. He specialized in glass at the North East London Polytechnic School of Sculpture. He ran his own studio in London before arriving in the U.S. where he led the glass program at California College of the Arts for many years. Unfortunately, California College of the Arts later closed their glass program when moving to San Francisco in 2022.

​Clifford shared a magnificent collection of new work with us based on a number of workshop tools he inherited from his grandfather and father. This is a large collection of glass castings of the tools in “standing stones” that Clifford Rainey envisions as a singular project that will be shown as a unified collection including drawings and the tools.
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Thank you, Clifford Rainey, for your hospitality and for sharing your story and exceptional work with the GLANC community!