As a child I found my grandparents’ handmade marbles. I loved their visual surprises: the whole worlds contained within and the combinations of color and shadow that popped up with changing light.
Overnight, I was irresistibly drawn to glassiness: shiny bits of gravel on the sidewalk, garnets culled from beach sand, window prisms that cast brilliant colored beams, and reflections of icicles in the Berkshire Mountains where I grew up.
At Brown University, I majored in Geology-Biology. I was intrigued by how molten rock forms crystalline structures at the earth’s surface and by the treasures of fossil rock. The glassblowing class I took at the Rhode Island School of Design ignited my imagination about working with molten material. The many years of travel I subsequently undertook—living in India and Central America for five years—opened my eyes further to the incredible array of pattern and form in the natural world and the ways in which different peoples use glass as a functional and decorative material. In Seattle, the ever changing light and reflection on the water and mountains is a daily source of inspiration for mixing color and light within my glassware.
My goal as a glass artist is to create stylish drinking glasses whose look and feel delight the user. With different light, with different liquids, from different angles, Wileyware will please you; it will change color, sparkle, and reflect iridescence into beverages. The Wileyware team makes each glass at a studio in Seattle using traditional glassblowing techniques, which I learned at the Pilchuck Glass School and the Pratt Fine Arts Center. The dynamic kaleidoscope effect is created when layers of dichroic glass, featuring a mix of colors, shapes, patterns, and textures, are encased in clear glass at the bottom of each cup. I hope their use will create for you the wonderful “aha!” moment I had when I discovered my grandparents’ marbles.
