Reflections on art
My name’s Dan Savage and I started my company, Artstop Studios, in September 2005, designing and creating architectural glass for public spaces.
I’m an artist by trade, specialising in architectural glass, and I work on public commissions of any scale. I studied Fine Art at Lancaster University and went on to do an MA in Architectural Glass at the University of Sunderland after that.
I found a fabricator to manufacture all my large-scale work (I still do the small-scale manufacturing myself). I was lucky in sourcing them (there are very few in the UK). I am relatively young to start a business, being fresh out of university, but my contacts 
there helped me to find the fabricator. It is the best thing that I have done so far – the fabricator takes care of the engineering and the fabrication, and without them I would never have been able to take on the commissions that I have, at the scale that they have been. The art world is sometimes dubious of artwork produced by someone else but I feel it is liberating – I’m still designing, but this puts it out in the public eye and becomes far more impressive.
My business role is as designer and project manager, so my days revolve around meeting clients, agreeing a brief and then holding workshops to analyse their needs in creating an art glass panel to represent exactly what they want. So for instance it might be an artwork to reflect a building or environment, or the function of it.
Some of the clients I’ve worked with are (just to give you an idea of the type of work I do): the University of Sunderland, Newcastle City Council, the Teenage Cancer Trust and Leeds Teaching Hospitals.
I love what I do, and this is and always has been the driving force for Artstop Studios. I always wanted to be an artist, but wanted to not just be painting in a studio, hidden and hoping that someone would discover me. I wanted to pursue it as a
business interest – part of my degree was a minor in marketing, and I wanted to set up a business, so Artstop Studios has shown it’s possible.
Now I’ve told you about my background, here’s a bit about what’s coming up for me! March will see the installation of a series of glass panels for Eldon Square Bus Station in Newcastle – it’s a high profile commission for me, and it could just be my big break…
