The Glass Fusing Process

While there are many different kinds of glass, the essential elements are still sand and intense heat.

My Glass lights, panels, vessels and sculptures are made by layering glass and combining it with a variety of minerals, powdered glass and precious metals. These materials are known as "inclusions" and create the colours and patterns you see in my glass. Once the glass has been heated to fusing temperature (about 800°C) the colours of the inclusions are sometimes manipulated by changing the atmosphere within the glass.

The pieces then undergo a very slow cooling known as "annealing" after which the glass is cut, ground and polished to reveal the colours and patterns within. Many of my pieces undergo as many as five separate firings.

Fused glass is said to have been discovered about 4,000 years ago by Phoenician sailors who cooked a meal on a beach under the stars. When they moved their pots the next morning, the sand beneath had turned to glass. Glass fusing virtually disappeared when the Romans developed glass blowing, resurfacing in the 1940s.

Glass fusing is not an exact science. There are so many variables ranging from atmospheric conditions to the different melting temperatures of glass batches, this means that the unexpected often happens, and so often, the beautiful accident is impossible to replicate!