Reji Thomas

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Reji (Rejina) Thomas is an American glass artist, painter, and community advocate. She was born in Los Angeles. Her mother was a nurse and her father an electrical engineer. When she was young, she lived with her grandparents on a farm in Evergreen, Alabama. She sold her first painting at age 15.

While serving as a medic in the Air Force, she began carving images on glass with a diamond dental drill, which helped her develop a steady hand for detail. She studied glass at the Pilchuck School in Seattle and later moved to Austin in the late 1970s.

In 1995, Thomas was hired to recreate all the intricate glass work for the interior restoration of the Texas Capitol. The project involved about 600 glass panels and required expertise in a rare double-acid etching process. She had previously made replacement panes after a Capitol fire in the 1980s. Her glass artwork has drawn commissions from IBM and 3M, and she created gifts for the President of Mexico and for Queen Elizabeth of England. Her work has been collected by notable figures such as Ann Richards, Barbara Jordan, B.B. King, and Steven Spielberg.

Thomas founded Graphic Glass Studios Inc. and Pine Street Station. Pine Street Station opened in 2009 as a public studio space and a home for “80s gypsy artists.” It hosted events like QueerBomb, AIDS Services of Austin’s ArtErotica, the Fader Fort during SXSW, HOPE Farmers Market, and the East Austin Studio Tour. She left the studio in 2014 after a court decision in favor of CapMetro, the property owner.

Her work has been shown at Austin’s Laguna Gloria Art Museum and the Women and Their Work gallery. The Austin Chronicle named Graphic Glass Studios the “Best Acid Drop For Art’s Sake.” In 2004, the Chronicle called her 11th Street mural one of the best looks back at the New Eastside. In 2017, the George Carver Museum hosted State of Ascension: Mixed Media Vessel Works, a two-decade showcase of her art. The exhibition highlighted vessels and paintings that position the womb as a metaphorical looking glass through which viewers experience the world.