Working with glass fascinates and challenges me. It’s like painting a canvas that I bring into three-dimensional form.

 

My nature inspired works and my bold abstracts are expressions of my love for color and design. Each multilayered composition is comprised of glass fragments and shards that I cut and shape by hand, fine glass powders that I sift from my crushed pieces, and a variety of components such as curled glass strings and accents that I cut from cane and rods of glass. My designs are 'painted' onto a glass canvas and then fired at temperatures that reach nearly 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit. 

 

My sculptures embody my love for constructing something from scratch, piece-by-piece. These works are free-formed with individual shards of glass, carefully arranged and layered to create their organic shapes. Because each one is constructed without a glass foundation, this technique requires a delicate balance of space and weight in the layers in order to successfully withstand the firing process while forming to its intended shape.

 

In my newest series, Crystalline, each sculpture is crafted entirely with small fragments of glass that I crush into different sizes, sift, and then layer in varied densities shaping and forming as I go. Many of these designs feature open cavities that allow the glass to stretch and drip into areas as it becomes molten, while still holding to its planned formation. This technique is my most difficult. It's a risky balancing act to avoid collapse and meld properly during the firing process, but each and every attempt is a quest that I love.

 

Depending on design complexity, it can take up to ten days to complete a single sculpture from concept, preparation, design and construction, firing cycles, coldworking and the finishing process. Each sculpture is an individually crafted work of art. No two are ever exactly alike.

 

For all of my works, forecasting how the glass will pull, expand, and meld during the heating and cooling cycles is essential from the start. It's like working backwards. Ultimately, my process is a creative fusion of prediction and precision. Sometimes I get it right and sometimes I don't, but the risk of failure never outweighs my love for the challenge.