My Journey Into Glass

My creative work is primarily driven by an acute awareness that I far too easily forget that there’s more to life than what I observe in the world around me. Glass has a way of helping me remember the “more” of life, the visible and the invisible. Creating with glass brings me moments when I catch the movement of light waves playing in the glass and I feel myself being dynamically drawn into previously invisible spaces. While I understand that the movement of light waves is a dynamic and evolving field of physics, I am more apt to lean into the moments of seeing the dance of light waves within glass as a mystical, heart-expanding experience. In Thomas Merton’s words I hear an echo of my experiences:

Sink from your shallows, soul, into eternity.

We touch the rays we cannot see.

We feel the light that seems to sing.

My work with both fused glass and mosaic glass is primarily motivated by the opportunity to be a participant in, and a witness to, the ongoing creation of beauty in this world at this time. I also find added motivation comes when I share my glass and see others find their own joy in pieces that catch their imagination.

My artistic influencers include:

Dale Chihuly’s inspired use of glass to transform living spaces,
Claude Monet’s impressionistic expression of light,
Georgia O’Keefe’s exploration of interior floral landscapes,
Wayne Thiebaud’s delight in commonplace color-saturated objects, and
Yayoi Kusama’s sense of the eternal in her work with circles.

My artistic path with glass began when I learned how to make traditional grouted glass mosaics on plywood backings. Desiring to significantly increase the impact of light’s interaction with my colored glass designs, I followed the lead of stained glass artist Scott Wilcox and migrated to creating stained glass designs on clear glass or mirrored surfaces. Most recently I discovered the joy of glass fusing, which I find is progressively taking my creative energy in new directions.

An Artist’s Awakening - Where it began

It was October 2012 when it dawned on me that I had been living a fairly painful life in the years since my husband’s dementia diagnosis. I coped well for a long time by actively focusing on my blessings...such as the love of my husband, the peace in our home, and the simplicity of our routines, but somehow the four-year mark got under my skin. I became increasingly aware that, although my husband was experiencing the heaviest load, the mantle on my shoulders was also very heavy and getting heavier. It became clear that the heaviness would continue for quite a while and I began to feel overwhelmingly sad.

In early November 2012, I was driving from Sacramento to Davis across the causeway, the same road I’d traveled for thirty-plus years. As usual, cars were flying along beside me. As usual, I glanced over and noticed the wetlands to my left. And as usual, I pulled my eyes back to the road. But on this trip across the causeway, a tug of war started: road…wetlands…road…wetlands…road. I started asking myself, “What is OUT there?” I was headed home. I had lots of things to do, but my wondering took over. I neared the end of the causeway, moved into the right-hand lane and pulled off at the exit.

Long story short, I ended up in an empty dirt parking lot out in the middle of the Yolo Wetlands. I sat there in my car with the windows up looking around me. Eventually, I realized I could roll my windows down. And once I had done that, I got to thinking that if I really wanted to experience this space, it wasn’t enough just to roll the windows down…I needed to get out of the car.

I climbed out and noticed that the buzz of the cars speeding across the causeway had disappeared. Instead I was feeling something like a pulse from the water and the breeze and the sun and the light – all interacting and creating this sense of aliveness and connection. The air was full of peace and vibrancy.

I slowly turned around 360 degrees. Sacramento was to the east, Mount Diablo out to the south, the coastal range to the west and the causeway to the north…in the distance…with cars and trucks moving across it…an Amtrak train headed toward Sacramento. This was another world: so close to my physical day to day world, but far away from my daily experience. I felt light and hopeful and so amazed. The beautiful wetlands had been in sight, but completely separate from my life, for all of those years. As I stood there that day in November, I felt my world expanding with gratitude that I had followed the voice in my heart.

I have frequently returned to the wetlands with my camera in hand to capture the beauty and peace I found there. That was the beginning of my profoundly healing and enlivening odyssey with nature and photography.

SHOP