Booth 925
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About the Artist
I have had a life long fascination with glass and the organic, flowing movement it contains. I find it to be a sympathetic medium to express my love for nature. The inspiration for my glass artworks begins with the natural landscape as well as from the swirling mix of colours I find within glass itself.
I begin my creative process by immersing myself in images, drawings, and photographs, of the natural environment. These are visual tools that I have created and collected for more than 35 years of being an artist and an avid naturalist. I study, select, cut and shape pieces of multi-colored, opaque glass to complement and integrate with the particular design or concept that I have imagined. I work intuitively, finding inspiration from the random, flowing, organic, movement of color that originates in the glass. My artwork often evolves as I work with the glass, adjusting my designs as I proceed. I draw onto the glass, mapping out areas to be sandblasted or carved, and then apply various of forms resists to block, or mask out, these areas. I then spray particles, under high pressure, at the glass to frost or carve away the surface and to create a relief affect.
In the piece pictured in my first image, I have cut, shaped and sandblasted tree shapes into a single piece of opaque glass to form the first two levels. To create a more three dimensional quality, I laminated these pieces to a sheet of clear glass, that was also sandblasted, to create slightly transparent, cloud-like patterns . More pieces of colored opaque glass are sandblasted and laminated to a second sheet of glass before framing all the glass together as one complete art work. The end result is a unique, multi layered, tactile artwork, full of movement and vibrant color that celebrates the organic nature of the glass and reflects the natural environment in a new and original way. Lives and works in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.