CHRONOLOGY

Born in Pittsfield, MA, to Viola DuBois, a homemaker and musician of French Canadian ancestry and Quinto Patti, a third generation barber of Sicilian descent, Tom grew up in the backyards of General Electric factories. In the 1950s at the new high-voltage laboratory near his home, he witnessed 15,000,000 volts of man-made lightning flash across fifty-foot gap between two generators. This was to be his inspiration - the mystery event of discovery between science and creativity

1960s

  • At local exhibition, meets Norman Rockwell, who encourages him to go to art school.

  • Studies Painting at Vesper George School of Art, Boston.

  • Enrolls at Berkshire Community College and soon receives a full scholarship to enter Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY; studies design with Rowena Reed Kostellow.

  • Attends meetings in Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.), project co-founded by Robert Rauschenberg to promote collaboration between artists and engineers.

  • Meets fellow Industrial Design student Marilyn Holtz at Pratt Institute.

  • Receives BFA in Industrial Design from Pratt Institute. Travels to Bogotá to present ideas on inflatable structures for low-income housing to architects at University of Los Andes. Begins graduate work at Pratt Institute; studies architecture with Sybil Moholy-Nagy. Receives research grant from Owens-Corning to study inflatable membrane materials for use in construction. Designs exhibition Plastic as Plastic for Museum of Contemporary Craft, NY. Frequents back room at Max’s Kansas City, NY, where Marilyn works.

  • Takes position as design consultant for Appalachian Project, American Federation of the Arts, NY. Teaches part time in Industrial Design Department at Pratt Institute.

  • Receives MFA in Industrial Design from Pratt Institute; thesis is “A Proposed System for the Development of Environmental Spaces from Latex Skins.” Applies for patent and contacts NASA regarding thesis application as it might relate to aerospace structures. Studies perception theory with Rudolph Arhneim, New School for Social Research, NY. Is in touch with Dr. Adrian Kantrowitz at Maimonides about a new method for implanting within the heart.

1970s

  • Leaves New York and moves to a rural farmhouse in Berkshires. Continues work on large-scale inflatable sculptures. Becomes interested in glass as a medium and builds small glass furnace.

  • Receives a summer internship to Penland School in NC.

  • Marilyn and Tom buy a house in Savoy, MA. Tom begins to explore sculptural possibilities of glass, combining his theory of form development with technologies of fusing and lamination; uses vitriolite and plate glass from abandoned buildings.

  • Marilyn opens Sunshine Diner in Adams, MA.

  • Receives summer internship to Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, Deer Isle, ME. Founds Savoy Glass School (for local children) in Savoy. Teaches straw blowing.

  • Marilyn and Tom get married in Savoy.
    Daughter Sienna Rose born on June 25 in Savoy.

  • Meets Art Wood and is invited to lecture on Form Development to students at Rhode Island School of Design, Providence where he meets Dale Chihuly and James Carpenter. Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, NY, acquires Opal Green (1976)

  • First one-person exhibition at Contemporary Art Glass Group Gallery (later Heller Gallery), NY, which begins longtime relationship. Museum of Modern Art purchases Untitled (1976) from the Banded series.

  • Receives fellowship from National Endowment for the Arts. Banded Bronze (1978) chosen for catalogue cover of New Glass exhibition, Corning Museum of Glass. Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY, acquires Banded Flair (1977).

  • Museum of Modern Art, NY, purchases Solar Bronze Riser (1978). Daughter Scarlet Flora born on May 22 in Savoy. Pattis purchase non-working dairy farm in Plainfield, MA, and move studio into old hay barn.

1980s

  • First one-person museum exhibition at George Walter Vincent Smith Art Museum, Springfield, MA. Tom attends Vienna World Crafts Council Conference and presents slide lecture on his work. Marilyn and Tom attend reception at Vice President and Mrs. Walter Mondale’s Washington home honoring New Glass exhibition artists.

  • Wins first prize at Glaskunst ’81, Kassel, Germany. Receives fellowship from Massachusetts Foundation on the Arts, and is designated first “Massachusetts Living Treasure” by Massachusetts Foundation on the Arts.

    • Travels to Czechoslovakia to give support to artists working in glass. Receives commission from General Electric to create site-specific, large-scale plastic sculpture for company’s Worldwide Plastics Division in Pittsfield; works with Dr. Dan Fox and team of scientists to develop two thermoplastic fabrication processes for work (now in collection of Museum of Fine Arts, Houston). Co-founds Artguard® Technologies with Marilyn.

  • Andy Warhol creates silkscreen portrait of Patti and acquires work from Solar Riser series.

  • Begins eight years as trustee of Creative Glass Center of America, Millville, NJ.

  • Receives commission for private residence in NM; during three-year project develops innovative glass casting techniques for Santa Fe Windows, Snake Wall, and Arroyo Door (1984–92).

1990s

  • Begins work as design consultant for Owens-Corning, Toledo, OH, continuing until 2000. Travels on pilgrimage to Israel with Marilyn and Sienna; lectures at Bezalel University, Jerusalem, but turns down an offer to head up the sculpture department. Meets with Dead Sea Scroll scholars from around the world,

  • Wins first prize at Glass ’93, Tokyo. Travels to France for one-person exhibition outside Nice, and begins continuing relationship with Serge Lechaczynski as European dealer; also visits Italy for first time. Begins seven years as trustee of Norman Rockwell Museum, Stockbridge, MA. Moves studio to large building in Pittsfield industrial park, purchasing an 18-ton high-pressure oven used by NASA to develop the graphite exterior of Stealth Bomber.

  • Joins design team, led by architect Cesar Pelli, for new Owens-Corning World Headquarters in Toledo, OH; integrates high-performance glass art within vestibule, lobby, and courtyard entrances, and creates 300-foot frieze and laminated divider wall, all with bullet-resistant glass.

  • Begins work as design consultant for PPG Industries, continuing until 2000.

  • Begins two years as design consultant for General Electric, R&D GE/Bayer. Receives commission from Mint Museum of Craft + Design, Charlotte, NC, for thirty-foot laminated glass wall interpreting relationship between advancing industry and state’s textile heritage (first permanent installation of art ever funded by Philip Morris).

  • Receives award for “Outstanding Achievement in Glass” from UrbanGlass, NY. Creates Carolina Rotunda Lites for University of North Carolina Law School, Chapel Hill, installing overhead sculpture of six laminated and cast glass filters that translate light into colored shapes and projected forms.

2000 - 2010  

  • Creates Spectral-Luma Elipse 2000 for Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, a glass entrance optimizing daylight, incandescent, transmitted, and reflected light, allowing viewers to interact with work as they walk through glass doors. Receives commission from Ann and Graham Gund, MA, to create Spatial Boundary, a site-specific entrance to their home.

  • Appointed to College of Fellows of American Craft Council. Twenty-five-year retrospective at Heller Gallery, NY.

  • Creates Folded Flag in response to events of 9/11. Begins MTA Arts in Transit commission for 74th St./Roosevelt Intermodal Station, Queens, NY, using visually interactive glass wall in head house to divide spectrum of sunlight in half, producing constantly changing sight lines and field of color and light. Begins commission for Morton Square, a residential building occupying full New York City block. Designs and fabricates laminated security glass to create wall panels, light sculptures, and clerestory windows, with a magnificent glass and steel-cabled “Light Monitor” in interior lobby ceiling.

  • Chosen by the MTA and the Jackson Heights community, Patti’s work Night Passage for Roosevelt Avenue in Queens is seen by more than two million people a day and considered by Arts & Design to be one of their most successful public artworks. Passengers experience color from different contexts as it varies with light from outside and drifts down onto people moving through the station. Seven glass triptychs inspired by the neighborhood’s ethnic diversity are located along the IND elevated platform.

  • Creates Flight Dialogue for the International Terminal at Charlotte-Douglas Airport. Over 335 feet in length, the art’s optical glass banding directs the eye forward as it unfolds with the viewers motion.

  • Named a “Berkshire Innovator” and included in the Feigenbaum Hall of Innovation along with Ted Shawn, Herman Mellville, Douglas Trumball and others. The permanent exhibit celebrates innovations that have come out of the Berkshires and had a global impact

  • Receives Honorary Degree: Doctor of Fine Arts, Westfield State University, Westfield, MA

  • Commissioned by JD Carlisle to collaborate with futurist Syd Mead and architect Philip Koether to create and fabricate artwalls for Jeffrey Chodorow’s FoodParc, Bar Basque and the Kimpton Eventi Plaza Wall at 3oth and sixth Avenue in New York City’s Chelsea neighborhood.

  • Receives the Rowena Reed Kostellow Award for his dedication to three dimensional design.

  • Included in exhibition “125 Icons: A Celebration of Works by Pratt Alumni and Faculty 1887-2012”. Featured iconic works created by Pratt alumni and faculty.

2011-2022

• Creates Manahatta and Windtower, two artwork commissions for the lobby of Madison House a new residential tower located at 15 E30th - the most recent icon in New York City’s majestic skyline.

  • Continues to collaborate on projects with artists whose work is chosen by the MTA Arts&Design. Tom Patti Design fabricates the artwork in high performance glass.

  • TPD is engaged to work as an R&D design consultant for Tesla, collaborating on design and prototyping the glass solar panels for buildings and vehicles.

  • Creates Periodic Motion, a public art commission for the new BART rail station at Oakland International Airport in California. A 300’ long glass that retains the aesthetic integrity of the open-air environment and the building materials that represent the technologies of our time.

  • Selected as 2015/2016 Artist for Specialty Glass Artist  Residency at Sullivan Park, the center of Corning Research Science and Technology.

  • Creates two integrated artwork commissions for the lobby of the new Madison House in Manhattan. Windtower and Manahatta - a kinetic sculpture for the lobby entrance and a large integrated artglass panel.