SIEMON & SALAZAR STORY
A journey that began with a shared passion for glass, art, design, and a deep appreciation for the natural world.
Siemon & Salazar is a lighting design studio founded by Caleb Siemon and Carmen Salazar. The duo have been working together to design and make hand blown glass lighting and art objects in Southern California since 1999. They met while undergraduates at the Rhode Island School of Design where Caleb focused on glass and Carmen on sculpture.
Caleb grew up surrounded by a family of artists and designers in Southern California. His early immersion in the arts led him to take a glass-blowing class in high school where he fell in love with the medium. He honed skills in college and as an apprentice in Murano, Italy, for master glass blower and sculptor Pino Signoretto. In 1999 Caleb returned to California determined to carry on the centuries old tradition and open his own studio. Friends, including Carmen, travelled from all over the world to help him realize this vision and it was during this time that the collaborative mindset was instilled in the studio's ethos.
Carmen Salazar grew up outside Washington, DC. Her parents were not artists; they were involved in the sciences and engineering. However, her folks instilled a love and appreciation for the arts early in childhood by taking Carmen and her siblings to every museum and show that came through DC. At RISD, while exploring architecture, photography, and sculpture, she too fell in love with the art and process of glass blowing. Carmen also continued her education after founding Siemon & Salazar and received a Master’s Degree in Architecture from SCI-Arc.
After ten years of creating a collection of artisanal vessels, in 2009, they launched their first line of hand-blown glass lighting. 2009 is also when they fatefully met the founders of Cerno, who had recently started a lighting company. Over the next decade, both Cerno and Siemon & Salazar evolved and grew. In 2022, Caleb, Carmen, Bret, Daniel, and Nick started exploring collaborating more, and those conversations turned into the two companies teaming up and Cerno acquiring Siemon and Salazar.
At Cerno's headquarters, with Caleb leading the design effort, we built out an Italian inspired glass studio, which is where all of our glass is blown today by Caleb, Carmen, and a team of skilled glass blowers that have been on the part of our story for a long time.
Meet the Team
Samuel Vazquez
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Sammy felt his calling to the arts as a young boy growing up in the family jewelry business. As far as his memory goes back, he remembers making and designing products. After high school, he studied glass blowing at Cal State Fullerton; at this time he also started apprenticing with Siemon & Salazar in 2010. Two years later, he was a full-time team member, and for the last 14 years, Sammy has become an integral part of everything made in the studio.
Rachel Perez
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Rachel has always loved the arts; since she was a kid, all of her free time was spent drawing, painting, sculpting, and sewing. However, the strongest pull was toward 3-dimensional mediums of creating. While majoring in studio art at Cal State Fullerton, her passion for glass developed. She took one stained-glass class and was hooked on the material. She fell in love with the beauty of the process and the challenges of blowing glass.
Matthew Ryan
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Some of Matt's earliest memories are of tinkering in his garage with his dad; he also loved to draw. His dad and grandpa were artists, and many of their pieces were around his home while he was growing up. This early exposure to art inspired Matt to pursue the arts in college. It was a 3-dimensional art class during his studies where he discovered glass blowing. Shortly after his introduction to glass, he started working at Siemon & Salazar, and since graduating, he has been a full-time part of the team since 2015.
Paul Brayton
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Paul was first introduced to glass while attending Pitzer College in Claremont Ca. All art majors had to complete an independent study off campus and he found a local glass artist (Rhys Williams) who agreed to take him under his wing. He was immediately mesmerized by the characteristics of glass. The heat, the fluidity of the material, and the continuous movement, dexterity and patience it takes to create anything out of glass.