Glass Light

GlassLight Goes to Japan

2008-11-27T14:07:00.001-08:00

In July, my realtor friend, Arlene Makita-Acuña, bought a serving dish to take to the wedding of her friend's daughter. Not knowing her or her fiancé well, she spent quite some time poring over each and every piece I had laid out on my dining table before my show at Annie's Art in the Garden (seen in photos from my July posting). Arlene is very meticulous and thoughtful. She is also a seasoned traveler and was worried about the glass breaking on her trans-Pacific flight and her travels around Japan before reaching the wedding location. After much exclaiming over all the pieces, touching and caressing them, revisiting certain ones, she selected a piece she thought the younger generation would like--some more modern, less "organic," more contrasty and with a bit of an edge to it.

She was able to send me a photo of the loving couple, Yoko and Hirofumi, showing off their wedding plate with Arlene. "They were very pleased!" she emailed.

I feel blessed to know that something I had a hand in makes two people happy. Every day I'm wishing for the light to pass all around the planet, and touch everyone's life.

The Magic and Mystery of Fused Glass

2008-11-25T22:29:00.000-08:00

My friend Ellen called my glassware "fumeless art" a while ago. However, tonight at the studio, there were some awful fumes blowing our way. Everyone in the studio was put off by the noxious smell and I felt a bit heady myself. Nevertheless, we persevered, being compellingly drawn to cut and snip and saw bits and pieces of glass in the hopes it will do something wonderful. Some of my studio mates work with such precision, it makes me see squares in my dreams. Meanwhile, I am still fascinated with what can happen when I take some leftover slices and chunks and lay them on a surface or two of glass. It's the recycler in me that prevails, not some orderly cadence that others seem to march to. So, if you are looking for perfectly square edges or perfectly round dishes, I am not your Glass Woman! There is something provocative about odd shapes, odd corners, pieces that don't quite match. One would think I had not worked on all those jigsaw puzzles my mother used to put out on a card table when we were growing up. We would walk by the table, spot a piece that looked just so, and fit it neatly into the negative space just waiting for its mate. No, I do not "do glass" that way.

The kilns, which are powered by the sun through the solar panels on top of the studio roof, work their magic while we are away from the studio. I can never predict what my pieces will look like when they come out Will there be a "dribble" here? or a color different from what I pictured in my mind as I worked with the pieces. The striker glass is the most surprising. It can look orange when I cut into it cold. After being fused onto another piece of glass, if that one is clear, what was once orange has now turned a striking red!

Tonight the kiln gave birth to several new card holders, soap dishes, a small plate perfect for sushi, and a large art deco-type serving platter. I am looking forward to finding out what appeals most to the MENSA folks this Saturday!

Whatever is left over from that show will be shown and sold at The Crucible Show December 13-14, 2008.

GlassLight at San Francisco MENSA November 29

2008-11-23T21:59:00.000-08:00

I've been invited to show and sell my GlassLight ware at the November 29, 2008 Brilliance by the Bay, a gathering of Bay Area MENSA folks. SF MENSA In case you didn't know it, International MENSA has three purposes:

1. Identify and foster human intelligence for the benefit of humanity
2. Encourage research into the nature, characteristics and uses of intelligence
3. Provide a stimulating intellectual and social environment for members

I'll be showing some new pieces this fall, such as business card holders, small dishes, and magnets, in addition to the larger plates and platters, for which I am known. Can't wait to learn and have fun with the MENSA folks on November 29 in San Francisco!

2008-07-21T09:29:00.000-07:00

The article in today's San Francisco Chronicle reminds me that I want to check out the Chihuly glass sculpture exhibit at the DeYoung Museum.

I saw an exhibit of the Chihuly team's work at the Phipps Conservatory in Pittsburgh. The colors, textures and shapes of plants make an intriguing backdrop to Chihuly creativity. Here are 2 photos I took at the Phipps:

Day 2 at Annie's Art in the Garden

2008-07-13T22:40:00.000-07:00

Unlike the first day, Day 2 of Annie's Art in the Garden dawned bright and blue--and warm! Luckily Annie had a colorful umbrella to loan me. Despite the fact that it had no stand, with Robin's ingenuity and James' efforts, the umbrella was put up in a large pot of garden gravel and held in place with Arizona stone bars.

Nancy usually works in the office at Annie's. Today she was taking Elayne's place and checking to make sure all the artists had what they needed.

My neighbor Dorothy brought a different painting to grace her table today.

Ceramics artist Rosemary was back with her pots and plates inspired by garden produce and ocean treasures.

Karen missed Day 1 of Art in the Garden because she was mounting an exhibit of her watercolors on rice paper at Alta Bates Hospital in Berkeley.

Old friends Steve and Margaret Michel, whose technical books I had edited years ago, dropped by. Hadn't seen him in years and it was good to catch up. Steve is now programing for Pictopia. He used to be an avid gardener in the good old days. His back yard was filled with vegetables in raised beds and the shed where he wrote his books was surrounded by flowers. These days, he's into beer brewing.

The sunny day brought out garden and art lovers galore. They came from as far as San Diego way, such as customers Zus and George who hail from Del Mar. George is a researcher at UCSD and Zus, who originally hails from Belgium, is a tile artist. They come to Berkeley periodically to visit their daughter and stay at their art deco house. Zus told me she made all the tiles around their fireplace. They bought the one art deco piece I had--a rectangular serving plate with amber, striker red and black shapes and stringers on clear. They discussed for some time how best to mount it on their wall in a way that it can be easily taken down for service. I offered them a clear stand, and Zus said it made her feel nervous when items rested on a stand, for she feared they might tip over. Luckily, Rain had come by that time, and she suggested using a strong thing silver wire and clips to suspend the piece. That seemed to satisfy George, who is very handy and has done much of the work on their art deco house.

Electrician Rob Harold, who is a fellow Certified Green Building Professional, came by to see the GlassLight. He selected a lavender and purple soap dish to take home to his wife.

Friends PhoeBe ANNE sorgen and Nancy Feinberg stopped by to see what I do in my "other life." A gardener in her own right, Nancy picked up a few plants to add to her yard. My longtime friend and mentor when I studied acupuressure, and an incredibly gifted acupuncturist and organic/structural bodyworker, Connie Cronin stopped in to select a few plants to add to her already lovely native plant garden, and look for a bowl to hold nuts. Alas, the GlassLight bowls sold out on Day 1.

Even though it was nap time, neighbor Amy brought her daughter Kate to check out GlassLight and buy a few plants for their garden.

Neighbor Cheryl Reinman, who has a lovely garden that includes a rose bush she inherited from her mother's garden, stopped by to pick up a few plants, and adopted the vase made with irridescent blue and clear glass.

It was another grand day at Annie's garden greeting old friends and meeting new ones. Now I can't wait to hear from the GlassLight adopters about how they are using the glass pieces. Email me your photos of you and the GlassLight you adopted, I'll post them on the blog!

Day 1 Garden & Art Lovers Delight at Annie's Annuals

2008-07-12T19:06:00.000-07:00

It was a seemingly typical summer day by the Bay--I woke up to cool overcast skies and a cool breeze. The light wind was a breath of relief because last week's relentless heat wave had been the most unbearable of the three we have had in the past month. The thought of sweating in the hot air made smokey by the hundreds of fires in California, was untenable.

I loaded the boxes of precious glassware in the back of my Subaru. With Rain's help last night, the glass pieces had been inventoried, numbered and assigned a price, and each one was carefully wrapped in bubble wrap or glassmaker's paper and placed in a box. Next came a box of bubble wrap, paper bags and strawberries for my customers. Rain got into the car with her gimpy leg--put into a soft cast 9 days ago when she suffered a very bad sprain when coming off a climbing wall. She was a trouper even though she was still in pain.

When we got to Annie's, all the other artists were set up under their canopies. I was greeted by "Fairy Dogmother," brought to life by an imaginative ceramist. . .

. . . and 'creepy' monster beads created by a local flamerworker and his wife.

Animals were a theme for several of the artists. Here are paper chickens made by a woman who is inspired by real life chickens and roosters. Some of her birds are made from handmade papers. Fun to look at, but not to eat!

Rain, as some of you know, has a great feeling for color and design, having done floral, window and shop displays at The Urban Green which you can read about here.

She has supported the Greater Richmond Interfaith Program also known as GRIP almost her whole life, first as a volunteer reading to little kids and serving meals, then in the last 4 years with her Hand Up Knitting design and knitware services.

So I was happy when Rain offered to set up the display of glassware.

Elayne, who works for Annie's, did a fabulous job of organizing everything for us. She had put a turquoise table by the beautiful Rosa Flutterby bush for us, which makes Rain happy because she loves roses. You can see a close up of the flower at Rosa Butterfly.

Being at Annie's Art in the Garden was like a reunion for me. Friends, former clients and colleagues came to celebrate the joys of gardening and art, and to find inspiration, peace and community.

Donna, an artist in her own right whose printworks are currently on exhibit at Mina Dresden gallery, her brother Keith (not in the photo) and their father Gene Sharee came from San Francisco and Marin Counties to celebrate summer, pick up some plants for Donna's garden and support my showing of GlassLight.

Shanna O'Hare, a former client who worked as a senior planner with the City of Oakland's Transportation Division, and who loves flowers, brought her gardening mother-in-law Emmy, who told me she used to do batik on fabric.

James Kalin of Virtually Green came by to help out and quench people's thirst with some organic lemonade.

Rhonda Edwards and Rosemary Yacono, with whom I worked when I was the Foreign Scholar Adviser at the University of California at Berkeley, came to enjoy the gardens and collect a GlassLight magnet.

Rosemary Lowden, a former consulting associate, now at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, came with her friend, Pat, to pick up a few Glasslight gifts and a car-load of Annie's plants.

Rain's boy friend, Jonathan Perry-Houts, came by.

It was fun answering people's questions about GlassLight, and explaining how multiple firings in kilns powered by solar energy, create the alchemy between artist and glass. Each piece is one-of-a-kind because glass has a magic and mystery that is revealed at different stages in the process of creating GlassLight. I might have a visual idea in mind when I start to cut the sheets of glass. The glass may break in a different shape than I wanted it to, inspiring my imagination onto another path. Take the striker red plate with 7 curved 'stripes' separated by clear glass. I wanted to make a solid striker red plate, however the glass had another 'mind.' As I was separating the circle from its surrounding sheet in the first cut, a curved piece broke off. That was the beginning the end result, which you can see in my June 12, 2008 post.

Thanks to Annie's and delightful GlassLight customers Rhonda Edwards, Patricia Gangwer, Deb Karbo, Rosemary Lowden, Arlene Makita-Acuna,Tracy & Neil and Dawn Munson, who adopted bowls, platters, sushi plates and serving dishes, we'll be making another contribution to GRIP this month.

I can't wait to meet tomorrow's visitors at Annie's Art in the Garden!

Preview Art in the Garden July 12-13, 2008

2008-07-10T19:04:00.000-07:00

Today was the first time almost all the glass pieces have been set out together. Last night my knitting maven daughter helped me inventory the pieces in preparation for Annie's Art in the Garden sale.

Instead of attempting to photograph each piece individually, I took several shots of the group. Seeing the dishes, bowls, plates and platters together gives one a very different feeling about the work. The kaleidoscope of color and shapes can be somewhat mesmerizing, However, to appreciate the magic of fire and glass, one must hold each piece up to the light apart from the others.

The folks at Annie's are gearing up to welcome all of the visitors this weekend, preparing snacks and beverages, and maybe even music, which they sometimes have at their other garden events. I'm looking forward to seeing friends, neighbors, and people I've worked with at Art in the Garden!

Art in the Garden at Annie's July 12-13

2008-06-20T16:11:00.000-07:00

I've always loved puttering in the garden, seeing what magic nature and nurture will bring. One of my absolute favorite places to find interesting and esoteric, as well as common plants, is Annie's Annuals in Richmond. Annie's is unlike any other nursery I've ever visited or patronized. You can feast your eyes and nose on row upon row of delectable perennials and annuals, see what the blooms look like, learn where they come from, how big (or small) they grow, and how to take care of them. One of my favorite things to do on Mother's Day weekend is to visit Annie's when she goes all out to celebrate moms with music, food, fun and more plants.

This July 12-13 Annie's is sponsoring Art in the Garden at Annie's and I have been invited to show and sell my GlassLight wares! Come sample Annie's snacks and drinks, and take home a few plants and glass plates for your next garden tea party.

It's going to be a blast! I hope to see you there!

Annie's Annuals
740 Market Ave. in Richmond, CA
510.215.1671
Don't use Google Maps or Mapquest, they will get you lost. Follow these directions:
Take 80 east towards Sacramento. Exit San Pablo Dam Rd. (two exits past San Pablo Ave) and make a left at the light. Turn right at the 3rd light onto San Pablo Ave. Turn Left at Church Lane, which automatically turns into Market Ave. Go approx. 1.5 miles (through 2 lights -- 23rd St. and Rumrill) and over 2 railroad tracks. "Annie's" is on the left a few feet past the second set of tracks, where you will see our sign and our large green fence. Pull into our secure parking lot.

Resurfacing

2008-06-12T22:02:00.000-07:00

I know it's been a year and a half since my last GlassLight blog entry. My silence is not an indication that I flamed out in the kiln or gave up doing glasswork altogether.

Rather, the absence of words reflects my struggle to photograph the glass pieces. Capturing the way light penetrates the glass and brings out the brilliant colors as eluded me for all these months. I've photographed the pieces under a skylight. I've placed them on a white background with incandescent light shining from one side. I've even photographed some pieces with a CFL shining through them. Those are the least satisfying because the fluorescence causes the glass to appear yellowish--like dirty, tobacco-stained teeth. Yuck!

Take this otherwise lovely piece, for example, I call it Deep Seaweed because the iridescent layers reflect light and remind me of deep sea kelp laying under the Bay water.

One evening I was playing around with some clear iridescence that had a fish scale-like appearance. Tossing around some blue and green shards, I suddenly got the idea for my next "marine" scene. This "under the sea" serving plate reminds me of my marine biology days, peering through layers of water to see the colors of oceanic flora and funa.

This other piece in my Under the Sea series is focused more on blue, which is another color I usually eschew!

I've been playing around with the idea of reduce, recycle, re-use. Glass has its own mind. Sometimes I have an idea of a shape I want to cut the glass sheet into, but the glass decides whether it wants to be a circle (or break into piece of a circle, as it is often wont to do) or a rectangle or a square, or a squiggly shape. Often I throw away all preconceived ideas of how a finished piece will look, and let the unexpected shape of the glass lead the way. This means that no two pieces can ever look the same or be the same size. Unlike some other glass artists in our studio who carefully measure and cut squares and strips to fit, I am drawn into the world of "whatever will be will be, the future is not ours to see, que será será, what will be will be."

So rather than striving for perfection, I've decided to upload photos of a few pieces.

There are more, but those pieces will have to wait until I feel brave to turn the camera on them again.

This delicate iridescent clear and chartreuse dish makes golden cubes of butter look absolutely de-luscioius.

My feeble attempt to do mosaic, but I have no patience for precision cutting!

This photo definitely does an injustice:

I'm really not an avid lover of red, however last year I got a large piece of glass called "striker red." It looks like transparent streaky orange. When fired in the kiln, the glass turns a deep, rich transparent red. Dedicating to using up what I have, I've had to find imaginative ways to use the color. This is an example of a circle gone haywire!

A small dish for small treasures, like earrings or a watch that needs to rest at night

Many of the GlassLight pieces are for sale. Proceeds are donated to a local homeless shelter and this year, some will be donated to my daughter's college fund. Send your queries to glasslight@barbarachan.com with your telephone number, name and description of the piece you are interested in, and I will call you back.

"Art dwells where expression creates impression"

2006-11-08T08:50:00.000-08:00

My brother-in-law, Terry, loves to cook. Whenever I visit my sister and him, I am treated to delicious Chinese dishes such as stewed chicken, braised tofu with pork, rich soups made with vegetables, piles of vegetable grown by his mother, and dumplings to die for. Once he had made so many different dishes, there were not enough large serving platters. So I decided that Terry should have his own GlassLight serving plate to offer his most sumptuous food to his guests.

Playing With Pieces

2006-11-06T23:03:00.000-08:00

Some of my glass studio mates cut glass with mathematical precision. Me, I'm often trying to execute on a picture I see in my mind or ideas that Rain gives me after I've fiddled with shards and chunks of leftover glass.

It's the Recycler in me that is compulsive about not wasting the glass. After all, someone spent a lot of time rolling it out in sheets so I could cut into it, play with it, heat it in a kiln, and shape it. How could I possibly throw any of the bits away?

Sometimes I put small oddly-shaped slivers or slices of glass in different colors into a metal trough. The glass is fired in a kiln to make "color bars." Everyone else's color bars are like mathematical soldiers--half a cm square, while my colors push and tumble over each other in the trough. When I put my pieces into the kiln, I don't know what magical surprise will appear when they come out and I slice through the cooled bars.

This plate, which sold at the recent Lick-Wilmerding Crafts Marketplace, has colors that remind me of the sea and the years I studied marine biology and ecology. . . vast pools of deep teal and green, light dancing through the water, colorful creatures hiding beneath kelp. . .

Sometimes I cut leftovers into thin strips and lay them in a seemingly random pattern.

Other times, I'm chunking it down, layering irregular shapes of glass over one another, playing with "striker" glass that changes color when it is fired. This purple striker dish is an example. It combines iridescent, striker purple (that looked blue before it was fired), strings of black glass and clear. This serving dish sold at the Crafts Marketplace too.

Once in a while I cut a shape and then cut it into other shapes to see what happens. Even though I may have an idea in my mind about how I want the piece to look when it is done, the glass often has a mind of its own. When that happens, it will break into a shape different from what I envisioned.

I've been working on some larger 14" or bigger platters, still playing with pieces. . . like this one made with amber layered with shapes in forest green, stringers and iridescent accents

This week some of my glasslight work will go on sale. It will be fun to see which ones resonate with folks

Color Abounds all Around

2006-07-16T12:11:00.000-07:00

My morning began with the sound of birds singing in the trees high overhead and sunlight difusing through the Hunter Douglas shades before 6 a.m. My body warmed to the stream of natural light and refused to bury itself under the covers for a few more winks. Even when I'm tired, I've always felt that sleep is such a waste of time when Nature's Light is turned on!

Mocha, Sammy and I went out to greet the day and share our gratitude for being alive with one of the squirrels who likes to race from our huge back yard pine tree, across our fence, across the street, and over to the neighbor's fence and then his tree. Every day he and his buddies take their lives in their tiny paws, and in all the years I've lived on this block, I've never had the sad occasion to bury roadkill.

There are too many DAYS in a year when life feels like a DAZE. We move from event to activity, from task to task, almost without consciousness. People say to stop and smell the roses, but we have so few roses very far and few between, that lingering to inhale their fragrance is only a momentary blip in the 365 days or 6360 hours or 525600 seconds in a year!

It is the riot of color bursting forth from our Poppy Profusion in mid-Spring and early Summer that stops everyone who passes by on their daily peregrinations--stops them right in front of our small, square yellow lemon of a house! Purple, red, pink, peach, salmon and white petals dance and wave in the breezes on 3 foot high stalks ranging from grey green to deep green.

In the Season of Poppy Profusion I sometimes peek from the window to observe people's reactions as they are compelled to stop and SEE the gifts that Nature has offered us. My heart sings a little lighter when I detect a lip lifting up at the corners, and even brighter when I see a mouth open wider with teeth showing and eyes twinkling.

Pausing, even for 5 minutes, to NOTICE the suble shades of red, peach, white and purple, makes me think about how I approach each moment in my day; about how I might be able to support my clients to enjoy moments in their day when they are beset by reorganizations, dwindling resources, or crazed by growth and expansion; how I can be a supportive and loving mom to my kid who is dancing to the rhythm of her own adolescence; how I can be a loving sibling, daughter, partner and friend; how I can be good to myself.

Alas, the Poppy Profusion has Passed. After our chat with the squirrel, I collected many of the 1000s of seed pods and seeds into bowls. Today was the day to compost the stalks and remaining empty pods. As the pups watched and drank their fill from the watering hose, I pulled and stuffed the stalks into the composting bin. As I pulled and lifted, I peered into the pods tiny and large, fascinated by Nature's architectural design. Ever since planting the first collection some years ago, I often think of things one can do with these intricate pods, but I have enough projects with other "recycled" objects that I don't need to give myself something else to be creative about!

. . . Perhaps a reader will feel inspired to do something with my pesticide-free, organic, non-hallucinogenic seed pods. I would be happy to share from next year's harvest.

The composter is overflowing, and a new empty "palette" awaits our next plant muse, a fresh inspiration for another Glass Light Delight.

Meanwhile, here is a small butter dish from my Organica Glass Light series. . .

INQUIRY: What inspires you today?

Fumeless Art

2006-07-15T15:30:00.000-07:00

Today I am claiming my place in the world as an artist.

It was a conversation on July 14 with my friend Ellen that impelled me to "come out." When I said I could send her some homegrown photos of my recent work, she said, "Ah, fumeless art!" I asked what she meant, and she said, by seeing art via the Web, people would not have to visit the artist's studio where they might encounter fumes from paint and other materials.

As I don't work with oils, and the chemicals in my work are essentially inert, I think it is safe for friends and family to view my work in person. But more often than not, our house is a creatively chaotic environment with multiple projects in progress. My daughter has her knitting design business and she is into woodworking and interior design. I always have at least two knitting projects in the works and our collection of colorful yarns holds a prominent place in our living room. Of late, my new works are taking over the hutch shelves, the top of the piano, and other surfaces, while the overflow hides in drawers and cupboards.

More people are asking me what I am doing, so I decided to give them a peak via the WEB instead of making them wait until we straighten up the creative chaos. . .

Please bear with me, as I'm just learning how to blog. . . This is my latest work in progress (smile)!

Since the days when my mom had a collection of lovely colored glass dishes and vases in our west-facing living room window near the piano I played while growing up, I have been fascinated with the interplay of light and color. I used to watch the sun pour through the window and its clear glass shelve, piercing the red, turquoise, cobalt blue, amber and green of the candy dish, the dainty tea cup and saucer, a hobnail translucent vessel, and other curious containers made from the same material as sand, to cast colored rays on the walls and floor.

But for most of my life, I did not even think to do anything with this fascination, other than to dabble in pen and ink, water color and admire people I considered to be real artists. For many years I hung out with good friends Martha and Alex Nicoloff who were doing neat things with their prisms and used to have prism light shows in their studio. Occasionally I bought a small piece and hung it in my window. I even invited them to showcase their work at my wedding party because I often felt transfixed by the color, light and movement of their work.

Over several decades I've watched a former high school classmate of my sister, develop his talent as a glass artist, David Ruth started with stained glass, made and sold glass, and taught in France and Japan. As he grew and developed a following, he was commissioned by the likes of Wolfgang Puck to make large counters and huge glass sculptures. When David started working with HUGE kilns to form gigantic fused glass creations for Disney World Tokyo's Under the Sea restaurant, I felt a pull that I couldn't quite identify. Looking at his VERY TALL thick panels, I felt as though I was being transported under the sea, swimming around amidst coral, seaweed, snails and other sea creatures. It drew my heart back to the years I was fascinated with and studied marine biology.

Still I did nothing, except follow his career--

Often in life, events happen to spark new awakenings. In 1995 I was rear-ended 2 times when my car was at a total, legal standstill. Although I didn't suffer broken bones, those events affected me dramatically and left me with nerve damage. The neurologist said I couldn't do fine motor activities anymore and had to give up doing pen and ink, working with tiny paint brushes, even knitting! Gardening, which for many years I had enjoyed, was excruciatingly painful, sending shooting pains from my hands up through my arms to my neck. I had to give up my 4 days of swimming a week. I had knit since I was 8 years old, and having to give up things I had loved was emotionally and spiritually painful. I spent two years feeling very sad.

One day, I told myself, "When one door closes, I have to cut a new door in the wall and walk through it." I starting a personal list of ideas and things I thought I might be interested in that I had never had time to do when I was doing all those other activities. Then I began exploring the ideas and seeing which ones might stick.

I spent a few years overseeing the rehab of our house. I took classes at the Building Education Center, which is a great place.. I thought I wanted to get into rehabbing houses, but as everyone who lives in the Bay Area knows, that is a ridiculously expensive proposition. After a few years of trying to do that, I let that idea go.

I kept working on regaining my health and even joined the gym at the admonition of my doctor. I hated the gym and hardly ever went, so I stopped that after a year and a half. I started gardening a little here and there and found I could work for 30 to 45 minutes without pain. For the last two years we have been blessed with a profusion of poppies. In keeping with my "New Beginnings" mindset, I stopped collecting and bagging the seed pods by color and type, which I had done meticulously for many years. Instead, I now throw all the pods into one large bag, then divvy up the seeds to share with neighbors, family and friends. Nature doesn't collect seeds by color and species, so why should I?

Three years ago, I went to my first Fire Arts Festival at The Crucible, and that was it. I was hooked. Images of metal, glass and wood started dancing around in my dreams.

In 2004 I began doing fused glass art. It's not a hobby for the feint of heart, nor the impoverished pocketbook. Although I had studied jewelry-making in college, I did not choose to join the many fused glass artisans who create earrings and pendants, bracelets and necklaces with the immensely popular dichroic glass.

Instead, I chose to work larger than I'm used to, and allow myself to be freer and less constrained, less tight, than I used to be with other media I have worked with.

Unlike Neil, whose mosaic glass pieces are such a work of mathematical precision, that I cannot hope to emulate, I may start with an image that appeared in my dreams, or in my mind as sat on BART, or while preparing food, or walking around observing how plants are growing.

Organic and evolutionary are the words that whisper at me when I touch and work with the layers of glass and try to imagine how heat will transform the type of glass and the colors and then how light will dance through the pieces when they finally come out of the kilns.