Artist Statement

A net can be threatening like a fishing net or reassuring like a safety net. It can be used to keep dangerous things away from us or to keep precious or fragile things safe and close to us. Nets are semipermeable. Although we can see and speak through them, and sometimes move them aside, they create two distinct spaces.

I make nets with flame worked glass, using a torch to bend rods of glass into shape. The process is slow and repetitive, each bend made individually as I work from one end the form to the other. I have begun to incorporate other materials either in combination with the glass or on their own, each process slow and meticulous and always creating a net or mesh. Each material, glass, wire, yarn, graphite, has its own specific way of moving and holding shape.

The materials that I use are essentially one dimensional. By arranging them into a grid, they not only become three dimensional but also set up a framework for which to expand upon. If the grid breaks or is compromised in one area, the rest of the piece retains its strength as it is reenforced at each connection. Although the materials that I use are fragile, delicate or breakable, the finished structure has an unexpected strength.