If art is innovation, then Ramon Orlina is an artist par excellence. For the last three decades, Orlina has been transfiguring glass into art. He was the first to carve figures out of blocks of glass using the cold method, cutting, grinding, and polishing his work with improvised tools and instruments - a feat at that time yet unreplicated even in highly industrialized countries. That he was self-taught, with hardly any predecessor, mentor, or influence to emulate, makes his achievement all the more outstanding.