Process and Materials

• I’m a glassblower, working with a powerful torch to shape glass in the flame (also known as lampworking or torchworking).

• I try to make friends with heat and gravity.

• I use borosilicate glass, precious metals like gold and silver, sparkling dichroic glass, and lab-grown opals to create my pieces.

What I Make and Why

• I specialize in contemporary glass marbles (also called orbs or spheres).

• Their size makes them easy to ship, or for a tourist to take back home.

• From the gallery’s perspective, they take up very little space and are easy to display beautifully.

• There is a wide collector base for modern marbles, but their appeal as a decorative object calls out to people who have never heard of them as well.

• Marbles connect people with the wonder and nostalgia of childhood. But modern art glass marbles are larger, more intricate, and crafted by hand.

• Collectors are often surprised by how precisely round my marbles are, and the illusion of depth they produce.

• Unlike sculpture or paperweights, marbles practically beg to be held in the hand, turned, and viewed from different angles.

• They are much less fragile than most glass objects, since the sphere is the strongest shape in nature.

• Collectors can have a collection of 300+ marbles in a curio cabinet, or one perfect marble on their desk.

• Something about the sphere as a canvas really grabbed me at the beginning of my glassblowing journey and has never let me go. I love them and love making them.