Scottsdale Glass Artist Newt Grover Featured In Documentary Film

SCOTTSDALE, AZ — What started as a hobby has bloomed into a passion for Scottsdale artist Newt Grover.

Grover, who grew up in Scottsdale, decided on a whim to learn the ins and outs of glass blowing nearly a quarter-century ago.

Fast-forward three decades, and Grover's work has become a mainstay in Southwestern art, earning him screen time on a variety of documentary and news programs including "Handcrafted America" and "Arizona Highways."

The 64-year-old's latest accolade is an upcoming documentary film put together by horticultural film studio PlantPop, which filmed Grover's array of floral glass art installments earlier this year.

Grover said he created a cactus glass chandelier during the filming session that will eventually find its way to a customer in Texas.

"I have a lot of people come and photograph me, and we were just doing cactus parts," Grover told Patch. "I'm on television a lot; glass blowing looks good on camera. So they tend to like it."

The understated artist is keen to let his works of art do the talking, with Grover taking much of his inspiration from the desert landscape around him.

He's built 30-foot vine-shaped ceiling fixtures and other ornate, horticultural-themed installations for clients across the country.

All that artwork came from a snap decision to shift his focus toward glass art 24 years ago, finding inspiration from a glass artist on a PBS program.

"I was doing neon, which is glass, but it's basically boring," Grover said. "And I saw a [Dale Chihuly] thing on PBS. And I told my wife, 'This is the coolest thing I've ever seen in my entire life.' I said, 'I have to do this.'

"And I think it took me eight months to research it and build my own studio so that I could blow glass, because there was nowhere to learn how to do it here at the time."

Grover's work has evolved from those humble beginnings, gracing the walls and ceilings of homes and studios across America.

Of all of his pieces, Grover highlighted one he commissioned for El Paso Children's Hospital as what he remembers most.

The glass art piece he did for the hospital was an upside-down cactus display, which gave him some perspective on the impact that his pieces could have on those around him.

"It took us a week to install it, and to watch the people walk by and talk to us and seeing the actual effect of my work. What it does for people was mind-blowing," Grover said. "People would just sit and watch us putting this up in the lobby, and I could watch their faces. And it just took them away from whatever their concerns and problems were.

"It was kind of like the lightbulb went off inside my head. It gave me a little more insight into the effect that [art] can have."

All those experiences have given Grover a finer appreciation for the impact that art installations like his can have on the world at large.

It's an impact he could hardly have dreamed of when he first started blowing glass, but one that he's grown to enjoy as his work continues to bloom.

"I come from a different, not particularly academic, art world," Grover said. "I'm much more interested in just putting value and beauty into the world and not making a statement per se."