Toland Sand Art

I think of myself as an artist who is enthusiastic about architecture, color, and light. As a curious guy with a degree in philosophy, I had no idea where this journey would take me when a friend of mine gave me his stained glass business in 1977. And so it’s been an incredible exploration of all the qualities that make up glass as a medium. I’ve grown up artistically with what is called the modern glass movement. I’ve been inspired by my peers as well as by artists such as Isamu Noguchi, David Smith, Henry Moore, and Mark Rothko. I inhabit the symbolic, the cosmic, and the mystery. I love that images can come and go, are made bold, and then disappear; are reflective and then not. The energetic and mystical side comes from the teachings of my spiritual Master, Sant Kirpal Singh, by whose instructions I meditate every day in my personal effort to connect to and be receptive to the vibration of the mysteries. Calligraphy has always been attractive to me. Eastern ideograms. Greek letters. Arabic writing. So keeping those in mind I feel free to create my own symbols that at once have meaning in their elegance as graphics and at once maintaining the sense that language and lettering can lead one into other consciousnesses and cultures; other ways of seeing things and their interconnectedness, that can be startling and fascinating. Two years in Taiwan as a child and five years in Athens, Greece as a teenager gave me the sense of otherness and the exploration thereof. How can one not be affected by marble ruins...