Today we’d like to introduce you to Anne Perez.
Anne, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I took a couple of classes in glasswork as a way to unwind from a stressful career as an IT Manager and ended up falling in love with this challenging and gorgeous art medium. I love the colors of glass and the way it transmits light. I’m compelled to recreate wild and natural scenes from my travels, imbuing them with the transparency and clarity of glass. I am a “fused glass” or “warm glass” artist, meaning I work with a kiln, similar to the way a potter does. I do not work in stained glass or blown glass.
My journey to master the techniques and chemistry of glass making has led me to many fascinating places like Salt Lake City Utah to meet one of my mentors who uses only recycled glass and to the Holocaust Museum Houston to see the work of the late Reuben Samuelson, a holocaust survivor, who worked in glass – making mosaics. I was given some of his tools by his wife and they are my most cherished glassmaking possessions.
After six years of glass making since I retired, there are still so many projects I want to do but that I finally feel I can now accomplish. Yes! It took five years of glass making to master the skill set I needed to make the art I see in my head.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
All artists struggle to master their tools and media. But glass has unique issues, such as industrial safety, chemical reactions which can either ruin or enhance work and a lack of the ability to see or control work when it is inside the kiln. Now and then, a severe thunderstorm can shut off the power at the Sugar Land studio I share with Albert Goldreich, Portia Bell and Wanda Sdao. Glass has to anneal so that it doesn’t get stress fractures. So once I had a large work in the kiln needing about 12 hours of annealing time and the power went out maybe 5 hours into that. I just had to wait and pray that the work would be intact and not shattered when the power came back on. And, amazingly, it worked out. Another problem that many 3D art and crafts share is a lack of awareness among judges of art shows about how the work is created and what shows artistic mastery. Once a work I entered in a competition came in second to a work that was beautiful but which any glass fuser with two years of experience could have done. The woman who won first came up to me during the reception and actually apologized to me. She could see that my piece had taken multiple firings and carefully controlled chemical reactions to achieve. We became good friends.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I’m a rather literal person after a career spent with 1s and 0s in the IT field. And I’ve surprised myself – as I’ve mastered the technical aspects of glass making I’ve actually become much more of an abstract artist. Over time I’ve let go of the need for exactness in favor or undulating lines or a gesture to portray a scene or a feeling in my work. Currently, I’m doing a series on Oceans and Sea Life. I love forcing the glass to become a wave, a seashell or a sea urchin.
If we knew you growing up, how would we have described you?
You wouldn’t know it now, but I was terribly shy growing up.
Pricing:
- Jewelry from $25
- Holiday Trees (a customer favorite) $35 – $55
- Bowls $45 – 75
- Platters $75 – 350
Contact Info:
- Website: https://raveneagledesign.com/
- Instagram: glasgrrl
Image Credits
All photos by Anne Perez
