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Manuel Castro was born in Wasington D.C. in 1974 to a Chilean-American family. He spent his childhood years growing up in Nicaragua. This bi-cultural setting insured that Manuel would travel throughout his life between places and people he calls home.
Manuel Castro’s first introduction to glassblowing was in 1997 at Pratt Fine Arts Center in Seattle, where a contemporary glass renaissance had been developing since the 70’s. From 2000-2002 he worked as part of the Manifesto glass team, one of the premiere glass studios in Seattle. It was at Manifesto that Manuel was able to hone his skills and comprehension of glass necessary to materialize the designs he imagined. “I knew that the daily process of perfecting the craft would create the muscle memory and vision to bring my ideas into form.”
In 2001 he was chosen to be part of the Lino Tagliapietra Seattle glass blowing team. The Italian maestro, Lino Tagliapietra is arguably one of the greatest living glassblowers in the world. The opportunity for Manuel to work with Lino has provided him with a vast pool of knowledge surrounding Venetian methods. Castro says, “The Venetian techniques in glass have always been a focus of interest for me. The combination of these age old secrets combined with modern concepts intrigues me and is the basis of much of my work. “
In 2002 Manuel Castro moved to Indonesia for two years, there he collaborated with visual artists and modern theater artists. With help from the Visual Arts Department of the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) in Indonesia, Castro helped to open the first hot shop in West Java. “The time spent in Indonesia opened my eyes to new perspectives of what beauty and art could be. The artists there had few resources to work with, yet found ways to create and live for the art form they had chosen.”
Manuel continues to work on the Lino Tagliapietra team and the Manifesto glass team. Castro moved to the Tashiro Kaplan artist lofts in 2005 where he presently designs and creates his own glass works. Castro is also a founding member of The Memory War Theater Project where he serves as writer and video designer.
Castro’s work has been exhibited at Pratt Fine Arts Center, Corridor Gallery, Senso Unico, Vision Gallery, Fabrik Galleri, and Art By Fire in Seattle, Portland, Chicago and San Francisco.
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