Unexpected Encounter

The mainstay of my shop is fused glass creations…. this can be a stand alone piece of glass, a mixed media composition (sculptural or wall-hung), or a functional piece of work (light fixtures, plates/trays/bowls,inserts for doors or cabinets, etc).

I most enjoy making custom pieces for folks… Because I am intuitive, after a short conversation I am able to "get that person" and design a piece that is "theirs".

While many glass artists began with stained glass and later transitioned to fused work, I have 20 years experience working in fused glass. I prefer fused glass for the following reasons:

• it is STRONGER than stained glass. Art glass is 1/8" thick; a stained glass pieces consists of a lot of 1/8" pieces of glass soldered together… which means that it is thin and with all of those joints, it has the potential to come apart.

Fused glass, on the other hand, is a SINGLE piece of glass; while an individual composition is comprised of as many (or more) pieces than a stained glass piece, everything is assembled in the kiln and fired into a single, final piece. Additionally, fused glass can be made as thick as you want…so, depending on the application, multiple layers of glass can be fused together (think "glass sink"). Really thick pieces are more expensive to produce because the firing process (bringing the heat up, ramping it down, and annealing) takes far longer - it is not uncommon for a firing process to take 20+ hours with a thick/large piece of glass.

• Stained glass pieces have distracting solder lines which can detract from the overall design composition - fused glass has none of these distractions!

• With fused glass, you have a larger "palette" to work from. You can "make your own glass" by pre-firing different glass together (to make polka dot glass, for example) and then cut it up for your design.. glass can be fired over and over in most instances.

All of my designs are from my own original drawings; if you have something specific in mind, I would be happy to work with you to create a working drawing for a project.

Technical excellence is evident throughout my pieces; I am a perfectionist when it comes to my work, and am willing to do "whatever it takes" to have a design materialize into the physical.