I’ve always been fascinated by the translucency of nature – treetops, grassy hillsides, and especially driving through the mountains of Virginia. Although some stained glass sheets come close, I knew there had to be another way to achieve the variation of color and form to transform my art.

Also, I was tired of wrapping each piece of glass in lead and foil, further restricting the light. I started by introducing flameworking into my windows. Working glass over a flame has brought me closest to my fascination with the translucency of nature.

Mixing and drawing hot glass to make it thinner gave me the range of colors I needed to create interesting pieces. Another goal of mine was to work in a painterly way, placing the flameworked pieces onto the background glass and seeing how each piece of glass looked before permanently attaching the leaves and petals.

Our latest innovation is creating branches with wire and solder and attaching them to the branches we design into our windows, adding even more depth. Suspending leaves and petals out on the “branches” gave us a realism that exceeded our expectations.