Rick Heidebrecht
Medium: Sculpture, Glass, Metal
My sculptures begin where engineering left off — in the logic of structure, the discipline of form. After a career designing computer hardware and software, metal and glass gave me a new kind of problem to solve: how to make geometry feel alive.
In the Almost Geometry pieces, steel frames hold suspended cast glass elements, each one catching and scattering light. The effect is intentional: I want viewers to feel the energy moving through the stack. Collaborating with glass artist Bobbi Vischi deepened this — her vibrant, translucent castings bring a warmth and luminosity that bare metal can't achieve alone.
Not all my work starts from pure geometry. "More Than a While" traces back to an antique men's suit pattern - reimagined in forged and acid-etched steel. "Out of the Mist" explores what metal can do when you let it radiate outward from a single point.
Together, these pieces represent an ongoing conversation between precision and play — an engineer learning to trust whimsy.