When asked what inspires him, Mitchell's list is endless: "I like graffiti, music, three-dimensional art, digital compositions that I see on Pinterest, furniture, Frank Lloyd Wright architecture, James Turrell sculptures. I also like a lot of fashion in bright colors. I used to be fashionable until I started blowing glass, and then I muted my color palette."

Mitchell grew up in North Tulsa, a predominantly Black neighborhood where more than 35% of the population lives in poverty. When his mother remarried, his family moved to the South Side, where he attended what he describes as "a rich white school." It was an experience that taught him how to "maneuver in both worlds."

"I don't know how I would have turned out if I had stayed in North Tulsa," he says quietly. He remembers falling in love with music during his senior year of high school when he first heard Kanye West. "My English teacher told me I would be a great orator because I liked writing poetry and read a lot of Shakespeare," Mitchell says. "She's the one who tried to convince me to go to college, but I wanted to learn how to produce music like Kanye. When I learned how hard that would be, I studied business basics in community college."

While famous glass artists such as Dale Chihuly and Rui Sasaki flocked to art schools like the Rhode Island School of Design, Mitchell's path was uniquely his own. "I learned by working as an apprentice in the studio," he says. "I kept showing up until they paid me."

Mitchell notes that glassblowers are rarely Black. "When I did a Google search for 'famous Black glass artists,' I found three," he says. (Therman Statom, Debora Moore and Ché Rhodes). However, the scarcity of Black artists in his chosen field made him more determined to succeed. He now says his challenge was, 'How can I stand out?' "I wanted to break all the design rules similar to Ettore Sottsass," he added, "and develop my own style.

So Mitchell set about creating irreverent objects: hand-blown kinetic glassware that swivels on a ball, colorful stacked geometric shapes he calls totems and tall textured bottles with whimsical patterns.

The key, he says, was practice. "Robert Greene's book 'Mastery' really helped me," Mitchell says. "The main thing for me was improving my skill set through practice. I still embody that today: the perpetual practice of things."

Mitchell's bold style — something he calls "modern funk" — is informed by Sottsass' playful Memphis-Milano Design Group of the 1980s, which blended bold geometric shapes with the primary colors of Pop Art.

By 2015, Mitchell was ready to leave Tulsa and devote himself full-time to his art.

He was still working at the Tulsa studio when he struck up a friendship with Los Angeles glassblower Joe Cariati. "I commented on one of his YouTube videos, and we became friends," Mitchell says of his mentor. "Joe invited me to L.A. to a demo they were doing. I was sending my resume to studios, and everyone wanted me to do interviews. When I asked Joe what to do, he offered me a job."

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