About Gary Graves

Artist. Entrepreneur. Educator. Always Becoming.

Gary Graves has never been particularly interested in choosing just one path.

He is a glass artist, entrepreneur, educator, technologist, art historian, author, and lifelong maker — pursuits that may seem unrelated at first, but together have shaped both his creative work and his approach to life.

Graves Gallery is where those paths come together.

Today, Gary is returning his creative focus to glass, working primarily with flame and heat to create one-of-a-kind objects by hand. His work reflects a fascination with color, form, experimentation, and the wonderful unpredictability of molten glass.

For Gary, the studio is not simply a place to make objects. It is a place to experiment, learn, fail, adjust, and try again — remarkably similar to entrepreneurship.

From Entrepreneur to Artist — and Back Again

Gary began his professional career in business and marketing. In 1996, he founded Graves Communications LLC, an advertising and marketing company serving clients ranging from financial institutions and credit unions to nonprofit organizations, political campaigns, entrepreneurs, and small businesses.

That experience taught him how ideas become brands, how businesses find audiences, and — perhaps most importantly — how entrepreneurs continually reinvent themselves.

Creativity, however, was never confined to his professional work.

Over the years, Gary explored photography, design, publishing, art history, chocolate, glass fusing, kiln-forming, and lampworking. What began as creative exploration gradually became a much larger part of his identity.

Graves Gallery grew from that curiosity.

Now, after decades spent building businesses, teaching entrepreneurship, and experimenting with new technologies and creative media, Gary is beginning another chapter: developing Graves Gallery as his primary creative identity and returning to the studio with a renewed focus on glass.

Education + Curiosity

Gary believes education should expand what you believe is possible.

His own education crosses business, technology, and the arts. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration and Marketing, an MBA with an emphasis in Marketing and Technology Management, and a Master of Arts in Modern Art History, Theory, and Criticism.

He has also pursued specialized education simply because something fascinated him — including professional study in chocolate and the culinary arts.

That combination of formal education and relentless curiosity continues to influence his artwork.

Understanding business helps him think entrepreneurially about being an artist. Studying art history provides a deeper connection to the artists and movements that came before him (see the Mondrian Studio for a taste). Technology provides new tools for experimentation. And working with glass provides something increasingly rare in a digital world: the experience of making a physical object, by hand, one piece at a time.

Professor + Change Catalyst

Gary is also a tenured professor at Fullerton College, where his work focuses on entrepreneurship, creativity, artificial intelligence, and the changing nature of business.

He has spent years developing courses, programs, workshops, and experimental projects designed to help students understand not simply how to find a job, but how to create opportunities for themselves.

More recently, his academic work has increasingly focused on artificial intelligence — particularly how entrepreneurs, educators, students, and small businesses can use AI as a creative and productive partner.

Gary experiments with AI platforms, builds AI-powered projects, develops curriculum, and works with educators and institutions exploring what these rapidly changing technologies mean for education and entrepreneurship.

Yet the philosophy behind all of this is surprisingly similar to what happens at the torch:

Experiment. Make something. See what happens. Learn. Then make the next version better.

Building What Comes Next

Graves Gallery is also something of a living entrepreneurial experiment.

Gary encourages his students to build businesses around their interests, skills, experiences, and the problems they want to solve. Graves Gallery gives him an opportunity to practice the same advice.

Rather than viewing a career as a single profession, Gary believes we can build lives from a collection of experiences.

Business owner. Professor. Artist. Author. Art historian. Technologist. Maker.

Each chapter informs the next.

Alongside Graves Gallery, Gary continues to develop educational and entrepreneurial projects exploring entrepreneurship, artificial intelligence, creativity, and the future of work.

The goal isn't necessarily to choose between artist, entrepreneur, and educator.

It's to discover what becomes possible when you combine them.

Beyond the Studio

Gary's creative projects have extended beyond glass. He is the author of the children's book Meet Chippy the Cheetah and has experimented across numerous creative disciplines throughout his life.

For 13 years, Gary also participated in AIDS/LifeCycle, the 545-mile bicycle ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles supporting HIV/AIDS services and prevention. Those rides became an important chapter in his life — combining community, endurance, fundraising, and the belief that individual effort can contribute to something much larger.

And he still believes some of the best ideas begin with two dangerous words:

“What if?”

The Next Chapter

Graves Gallery is entering a new era.

Gary is expanding his work as a glass artist, developing new collections, experimenting with techniques and materials, and building a studio practice that brings together decades of experience in art, entrepreneurship, education, and technology.

Some pieces will work.

Some experiments undoubtedly won't.

That's part of making things.

And that's part of the adventure.