I have always been attracted to glass art, but never in a million years did I think that I would be making it.  And then I retired in 2015 and took a few classes at a local glass studio.  I discovered that I love glass, everything about it.  It’s like people, complicated, ever changing and comes in many forms.  It sparkles, changes color, moves and reacts to the outside forces it is subjected to.

As I travel about the world, I look at the beauty everywhere around me and think to myself, “how can I recreate this scene in glass”.    I wanted to make glass landscapes of the sights that I see, with depth and dimension.  In 2019, I got my first kiln and took a class from Paul Messink, a world-renowned glass artist known for his glass landscapes.  In his class I learned the techniques I needed to make my multilayer landscapes.

I achieve the depth and dimension by using 7-12 layers of kiln-fired glass.  Each layer is a portion of the scene and is detailed with powdered or crushed glass and enamels. The layers are fired 3-4 times as more details are added.  The layers are then stacked and fired up to 1500 degrees to form a solid block of glass, a process that takes 72 hours in the kiln.  The completed landscape is coldworked, polished and attached to a complementary glass base.