Matthew Cummings was born in Anniston, Alabama in 1982. While always compelled to express himself through drawing, his first formal art training was in college. Initially majoring in Painting, Matthew was instinctively fascinated by the color play and emotive power of the abstract expressionists. After taking a required elective class in Glassblowing, he found in this new medium the potential to work with color and light in a way that painting could never match. This, coupled with a summer sketching the Masterpieces of Italian figurative sculpture in Rome and Florence, formed the basis for his aesthetics and explorations into Glass Sculpture. Matthew graduated from Centre College in 2005 with a Bachelor of Arts in Glass and Painting under the tutelage of Stephen Rolfe Powell. After college, he moved to Smithville, TN to attend the Appalachian Center for Craft, and to further refine his technical abilities.