Mr. Schmuck was born and raised in Northern California.  As an only child, Mr Schmuck often lost himself in drawing, invention, and just plain ‘making things’. 
At an early age, his family exposed him to the joys of the outdoors, and he spent many summers in the high mountains of Colorado with his uncle, Phil Schmuck
and his cousin, John Schmuck.  When starting university studies at UC Santa Cruz in 1981, this love of the outdoors was translated into a study of Geology
for Mr. Schmuck.  Funny things happen, and an interest in studying the earth flipped into a desire to make art when Mr. Schmuck began to explore the visual
dimension of the science of Geology. Despite attaining a Bachelor’s degree in Earth Science (aka Geology), he started to paint and to ‘make things’ again while
working as a tofu novice in Santa Cruz. 

After one year, Mr Schmuck was tired of the wetness of paint, of clay, and of tofu, so he enrolled in Mary White’s glass class at San Jose State.  Three years
of class there led him to an apprenticeship and a job in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with Flo Perkins.  Once in Santa Fe, Mr Schmuck was also able to work with
Charles Miner, Peet Robison, and Mark Stephenson.  After three and one half years in New Mexico, it was time for Mr Schmuck to open his own studio
but while being a teaching assistant for a glassblowing  course at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in Maine in the summer of 1994, he was provided
with the impetus attend graduate school.

Mr. Schmuck moved to Rochester, New York, for graduate study in glass at the School for American Crafts, RIT, the Rochester Institute of Technology. 
During this time, he was written up in the New Glass Review #17 by Arthur Danto, in regards to a ketchup-bottle ‘Hourglass’.  Mr Schmuck was also
elected as Student Representative to the Board of Directors of GAS, the Glass Art Society.  His MFA show opened just one month before Mr. Schmuck
had to put together the Education Center & Miniature Golf Tournament for the 1997 GAS conference in Tucson, Arizona.  Funny things happen, and not
10 minutes after obtaining the last signature of approval on his MFA thesis at RIT,  Mr Schmuck was informed that he won a Fulbright Scholarship
to attend the Canberra School of Art in Australia, for post-graduate study and a candidacy for a Master’s degree there.  He accepts.

Australia starts out as a challenge.  Though the atmosphere is more congenial than that found back in the ‘states, the Uni in Australia runs a much tighter ship,
and the rigor of the program is very evident in the Glass Workshop.  Mr Schmuck’s supervisor, Stephen Procter, often would leave Mr. Schmuck totally deflated
and demoralized about the work being produced.   But Mr Procter knew that Mr Schmuck would rebuild himself, and stronger.  During this time, which included
a trip to Venice, Italy, to attend the opening of the Venezia Aperto Vetro show in 1998, of which Canberra School of Art was the only school invited to show,
Mr Schmuck also becomes a member of a team for Klaus Moje, turning Mr. Moje’s fused flat panels into blown cylinders in a revolutionary glassmaking process
known as the Roll Up.

Funny things still happen, and the Roll Up turns out to be Mr Schmuck’s salvation. Not only is it a comprehensive and vital new technique of glassmaking,
involving fusing, blowing, wheel cutting and other cold-finishing processes, the Roll Up also provides Mr Schmuck with possibility of executing work directly
related to the aesthetic of his studies in geology a decade earlier.  In August of 1999, this course of action leads to Mr. Schmuck’s first solo show at the
Beaver Galleries in Australia, entitled ‘Unconformities’, which dealt with the expression in glass of the meeting and juxtaposition of two different types
of rock strata within the context of a vessel.  As an exhibition, it was a huge success.

Visa and workplace issues led Mr. Schmuck to a three-month residency at Gloria Hot Glass in Auckland, New Zealand, with Ruth Allen, and a chance to
see in the new Millennium at one of the closest points to the Dateline on the east coast of the Great Barrier Island of New Zealand.  He then set out
to return to America via Viet Nam, Laos, Thailand, Nepal, Bhutan, Sikkim, India (and a visit to the glass-producing city of Firozabad), Egypt, and the UK. 
But nothing in his travels prepared Mr Schmuck for his return in mid 2000 to Santa Cruz amidst the “dot-com boom”, so he fled to Chico, California,  to build
his Roll Up studio.

Fifteen months was enough in Chico.  Funny things happen, and on the very first of April in 2002, Mr Schmuck moved his operation to Santa Cruz, only thirty
minutes from where his Dad lives in Los Gatos, one minute from his favorite surf break, Mitchell’s Cove, and 30 seconds from the infamous Derby Skate Park. 
In 2003, Mr Schmuck taught Roll Up classes in Corning, New York; Montreal, Canada; and La Granja, Spain.  His work has been subsequently inducted
into the Museo del Vidrio in La Granja, Spain.  Mr. Schmuck taught there again in 2005, and he toured through parts of Spain and Holland afterwards,
taking note of the remarkable graffiti murals in those parts.  For the autumn of 2005, Mr Schmuck began a series of glass skateboard decks with
graffiti text on them.  In December of 2005 more funny things occur, and Mr. Schmuck purchases a house in Santa Cruz.  In 2007, he embarks on a
more rigorous teaching schedule for the Roll Up, in Spain again, Corning, Texas, just to name a few, and soon find that his own work begins to change.

Presently, he’s intrigued by making small and intimate objects inspired by non-ordinary reality

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