The series I recently worked on started out as a personal challenge
to try to make an object in glass that I would not normally make.
For the previous four years my blown work was based on organic forms and textures, purposefully avoiding the illusion of preciousness so often associated with glass. In the fall of 1995, I was asked to be a substitute studio assistant for one week during a two-month concentration taught by Dimitri Michaelides at the Penland School of Crafts. For that one week I wanted to experiment with making pieces using the Encalmo technique of joining blown parts together hot. I found that the discipline involved in making tight forms with crisp lines and hard edges accented by bright playful colors gave me as much pleasure as my previous work with organic forms.
I call these objects Toys and Game Pieces. The toys consist of a ball and a trumpet shape joined together hot, made in bright childlike colors to give the viewer the impression that they could be rolled around on the ground like a child's toy. The game pieces possess much of the same characteristics as the toys, but stand upright with the idea that they are meant to be played in an abstract game. I incorporated the use of colored pencils in the game pieces to maintain control over the line quality and color density. I have come to enjoy the work and find the process of making them as playful as the objects themselves.