For 17 years Gene Messick studied and taught Design at NC State University and Cornell. Co-founding the Visual Design Program at NCSU, he established the Photography Program at Cornell, where he taught in the Architecture Department, most interested in experimental structures.
During the first "energy crisis" in the late 70s, he built several attached solar greenhouses, and has been an alternate energy advocate ever since. For 30 years, he's been doing glasswork, focusing now on kiln-fired fused glass at Regeneration Glass. Fusing glass is a technical endeavor. When our Economy went into Meltdown, Gene built his first Website to forewarn folks of dire consequences in their future: http://earthhome.us
Gene now divides his time, living in semi-retirement on Social Security benefits, between fusing glass, subsistence gardening (with seasonal journeys into winemaking) and word smithing: shining light into dark corners. Lightworks was the name of his former glass studio in North Carolina, where he once had a garden in Eden. Light Works.
