I work in glass because I love both the reflective and the translucent qualities of the saturated color palette. Glass transforms from a solid to a liquid slowly over a wide temperature range, making it the perfect medium to manipulate with heat and create the range of textures that invite touch. Unlike my creative outlets in sketching and painting on paper, the impervious and hardwearing quality of glass enables it to better stand the test of time.
The aim of my glass art is to capture the smaller moments of life that make you smile, distilling them down to their basic silhouette and adding back only the details that contribute to the lightness of the moment. Glass is a tool to bring my artistic visions, precious moments, and scientific experiments together in a way they can be shared with others. Everyone wants to find a way to leave their mark on the world, and for me, I find this through my glasswork.
I grew up in Staten Island, New York and spent my time loving math and science and art. I completed a college degree in engineering and sailed to foreign ports as a cadet engineer. During college, I was drawn to the ocean and understanding how ship’s systems worked through mechanical drawings. After graduation, I married my college sweetheart and we became a Navy family, continuing to travel together for the next 25 years. I have always been amazed at both the vastness and the detail of the world and so began my love of sketching the things around me.
I started working with molten glass in 2008 after taking glass blowing classes at Tidewater Community College in Portsmouth, Virginia. I loved how the molten glass can be taken straight from the furnace and shaped as if by magic with all of its unique colors. In 2010, I started working with fused glass when we bought a kiln and a torch. The Navy proceeded to move us to Japan and then to Italy and then back to Japan, with some Florida-time mixed in. I started creating glass mosaics in 2016 when I had the incredible opportunity to take the Orsoni Master in Mosaic class in Venice, Italy.
In my fused glass work, I begin with a 3mm sheet of Bullseye glass that is cut and ground with traditional breakers and contemporary saws, adding glass bits and paints to create detail and dimension. Each work is fired in a kiln to set the glass fragments together. Working with warm glass uses part creativity and part understanding how the glass will behave when heated by torch or kiln. Each color and thickness can react differently over time, but the results can be measured and then expected.
In my glass mosaics, I begin with a thicker 8mm glass slab of Orsoni venetian smalti that is chipped and shaped using traditional wheeled nippers, a hammer and a hardie. My work uses the direct method, adhering smalti cut side up with thinset and no grout. Placement of smalti allows for controlling each pieces’ size, flow and direction, while focusing on overall color gradient. It is amazing that a collection of small pieces come together to form a whole that is both unique from and dependent on its parts.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Sharon Warren Glass | Sharon Warren Glass Art | sharonwarrenglass | sharonwarrenglass.com | Sharon Warren Glass Artist | Belfast Maine | Belfast Maine Glass Art | Belfast Maine Art
ABOUT ME
sharon.leah.warren@gmail.com
Follow on Instagram @sharon.leah.warren
