About the Art...
It was going to be garbage until I found my technique to repurpose broken and scrap pieces of window glass, turning it into timeless and unique pieces of art.
When it first arrives, it is unloaded and sorted by size. Then the process truly begins!
​
Each piece is trimmed to the desired size for the piece I plan to create with it. Then, the corners and edges are ground smooth. Before really getting to work with it, the glass must be spotlessly clean, so it gets a meticulous scrubbing.
​
Once the prep work is finished, it's time to make it come to life!
Using clay, I aim to capture the exquisite beauty surrounding me in the PNW and create the perfect mold for the glass. The simplest, small sculptures may take me a day, but the more ornate pieces may take months to complete. Not only do I want to capture as much detail as possible, but I also have to consider how the glass will form around the mold later in the process.
The hours spent perfecting each sculpture results in gorgeously detailed glass.
Once the sculpture has been perfected and the clay is cured, it's time for glass! Each piece of glass is cut specifically for the sculpture I wish to capture and carefully balanced on top of the clay inside the kiln. Using my energy efficient techniques and equipment means that firing takes at least 9 hours for the glass to properly set into the finer aspects of my sculptures . Needless to say, my studio is toasty year round!
About the "We, Me, I, Us,"
While I am the creative artist behind the artwork, I am certainly not alone in this venture. I am blessed with a husband geared for mechanical engineering who keeps all my equipment functioning and maintains my studio’s safety. My sister is an endless source of ideas and enthusiastic support. My daughters serve as counselors and coaches to keep me focused and my sons-in-law are brilliant technological gurus. My family and friends cheer me on and keep me well fueled with chai lattes and dark chocolate. What’s that saying… something about a village?
