"When glass is hot, it's alive," says award-winning artist Josh Simpson. Using wooden blocks and other traditional tools, he gives birth to miniature planets in his western Massachusetts studio. Beginning with a ball of molten glass, he adds metal foil oceans, powdered glass continents, mosaic volcanoes, and spiraling filigrana glass satellites encased in further layers of colorless glass. These abstract features are made recognizable only by our imagination, reminiscent of NASA photographs-the Earth rendered distinctly unearthly. One of Simpson's colossal Megaplanets is in PEM's American Decorative Art collection.