Artist's statement
I have a lifelong fascination with the interplay between glass, light and color. Beginning with decorative bottles of colored water in windows during my early childhood to a tour of Kusak glass company in Seattle where my mother had her first high school job, glass has always inspired me. My own work in glass began more than 30 years ago when I studied stained glass technique in Los Angeles at a long-since defunct studio.
Children (wonderful adults in their own right) and other important distractions such as a day job kept me away from glass for many years, but over the past several years I have re-connected with my glass addiction through warm or kilnformed glass. This medium is, for me the epitome of glass heaven, not only are the light and color opportunities greater than I found in traditional leaded or foiled stained glass, with these techniques there are also tactile rewards. Kilnformed pieces beg to be touched and held. Some are whispery light, others have heft, and as they are held to different lights the attraction is magnified.
The process of kilnforming glass involves cutting and arranging glass in desired arrangements, then heating the glass in a kiln to temperatures in the neighborhood of 1500 F. Temperatures and times vary depending on the desired effect, but many of my pieces have 3 or more trips to the kiln, for 15 hours or more each time.
Warm or kilnformed glass is the convergance of art and science, it is about color, light, the chemistry and physics of melting glass in the presence of other elements. I am continually excited about the opportunities for exploring new techniques and applications.