The Process | Mysite 1

Living along the storm

My art is filtered through my life experience. I have lived through immense challenges – storms – and found my way through and alongside them, eventually discovering joy, peace, and strength.

As a reflection of our lives struggles, each piece I create bears the mark of a storm. This is created by allowing silver leaf to fuse onto sulphur based glass, causing a reaction - shifting - radiating - and forever marking the place where it landed.

The joy and peace we experience in life are added to the pieces by carefully and intentionally layering grains of powdered glass. Then, through the immense heat of the kiln, the tiny grains fuse together into a solid piece of glass that resembles a heavy piece of paper. As the grains of glass are being arranged, the design is fragile and can be disturbed with a breath of air. I hope to influence others to choose to find joy - to seek out peace and accept the immense effect of the storm in their lives and to realise that through that, grain by grain, they can build something beautiful and strong.

I start with glass that is designed for kiln firing. It is measured, scored and broken into the pieces I need. The finished pieces are assembled. The base glass is fired in the kiln for about 8 hours to about 1500 degrees.

I use pure silver leaf to force a reaction in the kiln with sulfur based glass. Once this is positioned the base piece is ready for the second trip to the kiln. This is where the heat and the composition of the materials cause a reaction that marks the glass.

Paper Glass

The paper glass is created completely from powdered glass. By running a tool across the feeder the vibration allows the powder to be controlled. Once the base powder is in place I use shapers to move the powder to my design. The design is built in reverse with each layer covering the layer below it. This continues until I have a thick even layer of powder. Then it is ready for the kiln where it will fire to 1425 degrees over 11 hours.

The fine powdered glass resembles heavy art paper once it is fired.

Now that all the elements are fired they are assembled into the final creation - complete with the wrought iron hanger.