Although I initially considered an academic career in Sociology and Philosophy, I quickly discovered that the beauty of glass and my love of nature, especially as viewed through a microscope, are far more attractive to me and so I abandoned academia and taught myself glass fusing. Now, after 24 years, I still work with glass and I still find that one way or another, all my designs are in some way taken from nature. This is evidenced mainly in the colour combinations of my “Striped Dichro” jewellery line and in the line patterns and their interplay with the shapes in my new “Mosaic Series” pendants and earrings.

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Throughout my glass career, there are two technical elements that inform my work: first it has always been important to me to make beautiful things, so beautiful, in fact, that they will be used for many years, and not go out of fashion or thrown out after a season or two. Ideally, I want to make heirloom pieces. So, I spend a lot of time designing every piece. The second thing is that in order for my work to be used and cherished for many years, it must be of the highest quality that I am capable of. To that end, I spend a lot of time perfecting my control over the glass, be it during the kiln firing (heating, cooling or hold cycles), honing my glass cutting, but especially my cold working (glass grinding) ability or, of course, my designing skills. The need to make beautiful, high-quality work necessitates that the adjunct findings, the ear wires for the earrings and the bails for the pendants, for example, are designed by myself to complement my glass work and that I make them using only nickel-free sterling silver.