Tommie Rush
Tommie Rush is a native of Mobile, Alabama and a graduate of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Early in her studies in studio art, Rush began work in ceramics and eventually worked exclusively in glass, and she now maintains an atelier, Tomco Inc., in Knoxville. In 1980, Rush began to share a studio with renowned artist Richard Jolley, whom she married several years later. Through experimentation with custom-blended glass mixed in the studio, Rush has created a unique and identifiable style, and her work has been shown in more than seventy-five exhibitions as well as honored in a 2011 retrospective exhibition at the Mobile Museum of Art. Rush created a glass and welded-steel, site-specific commission for the headquarters of Scripps Networks in Knoxville, and her work can be found in numerous private and museum collections throughout the United States, including the Sheldon Art Museum and Sculpture Garden in Lincoln, Nebraska; the Renwick Gallery in Washington, DC; and the Tennessee State Museum in Nashville, Tennessee. As a tireless supporter of the arts, Rush has served on several national boards, including the Glass Art Society in Seattle; the Penland School of Craft in Asheville, North Carolina; and the American Craft Council in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She remains very active with her local arts community.