After a hiatus from designing architectural leaded glass windows, ideas began to percolate bringing me onto another glass related creative path. Of course the medium had to be another form of glass, the material that I love – elusive, transparent, a mystery material.

My work is driven by an urgency once an idea strikes me. I sweat and jitter as I start to get the image out into the world. I line up shards of glass everywhere – on all the window sills and mullions with the spikey odd shapes of glass in fine and dazzling colors that balance precariously. A creative intensity unfolds, similar to the early days of falling in love.

I am urged through my hands to impress designs. The glass will tell/reveal who I am and let me know what I can do to please it, to enhance its existence over and over again. During this creative period, during the day or during rest or sleep, I’m always thinking of the textures of the glass, its surfaces, inclusions, its reams and bubbles, dips and striations. I use these elements in the glass like paint on a canvas, and place them just so into my compositions. The bubbles, inclusions, reams, speak to me as do paint colors.

As I work, I feel my lines flow like lyrical phrases in music. Phrases are created as my hands press and pull on the preliminary clay model, evoking a sensuous delight. I feel a desire to revisit, to view, and to continue carving and pressing until I’ve created a satisfying composition.

Ultimately, this transparent and translucent medium is a paradoxical metaphor for the self, fragile yet strong, see-through yet concrete.

When I work and create, I surrender.

Love, love of life, joy, work, achievement, struggle, suffer, feel torment, plow through agonizing interludes to finally rest in its delicate transparency.