0:03

hello everyone thank you for joining me today my name is sarah huffman and i am the art rental

0:09

and sales associate at the art gallery of alberta we welcome you to our meet the artisan series a

0:14

part of aga live here at the gallery we embrace the teachings of tatewa a kree phrase meaning welcome there is

0:21

room in our house even the virtual one everyone is welcome i’m delighted to be your host for this

0:27

hour joining me today is artisan juliana reese of infused glassworks before we dive into the subject i’d like

0:34

to highlight that this is an interactive event and we’d like to hear from you you are welcome to use the chat window on the

0:41

side screen to share your comments as we discuss with juliana if a question gets unnoticed or

0:46

unanswered at the time please know that we will review all unanswered questions before we wrap up

0:51

today’s event so juliana is inspired by nature and the physics of

0:57

being this passion has given birth to collections like tree lover at heart series

1:02

and the colors of your soul her work is often flavored with hints of her earlier

1:08

career as the geological technician featuring fossilized detail and patterns

1:13

akin to stratigraphic cross sections her love of translucent

1:18

color and texture combined with the technical aspects behind each firing makes glass fusion the perfect medium

1:25

for her mad happy scientist at heart she started infused glassworks in 2010

1:32

to dedicate herself to the study and experimentation of kiln-formed glass

1:37

her work at radium hot springs received the people’s choice awards with parks canada

1:43

it has also been featured in prestigious events such as ottawa’s snowflake charity ball

1:49

art takes times square new york usa and has been published in best of

1:54

worldwide glass as well as the spectrum glass company’s national glass publication

2:00

she currently creates and teaches from her home studio in calgary please take this time with me to give a

2:06

warm welcome to our september artisan juliana reece

2:13

hello welcome thank you so much for joining us tonight

2:18

juliana it’s such an honor to have you thank you for having me you know i’m grateful that i get this opportunity as

2:25

well too so thank you sarah thank you hga i tell you now because i go off on a tangent often and i don’t want to forget

2:31

to thank you later so thank you thank you everybody who is taking the time

2:36

to listen to this today too and for all those who appreciate my heart thank you i do

2:41

appreciate it absolutely we’re so excited to learn more about this process i know i’m there’s so much

2:50

there’s so much with uh with glass as a medium i’m i’m really intrigued to know what goes behind the

2:57

process the artistic uh endeavors and the safety how do you keep safe in a

3:03

studio with glass and uh yeah definitely probably have to wear

3:12

goggles i’m assuming these are actually safety glasses i have them on because i will snap a

3:17

piece of glass for you a little while awesome i’m looking forward to it um so

3:23

let’s maybe start off with talking about your artistic process and maybe what are some things

3:30

that have inspired you to create pieces and how do you get started

3:35

um okay so my artistic process i would i guess the inspiration strikes before i even get into the studio

3:42

some i mean i’m i’m known to go for a bike ride and i’m looking at nature because i’m a tree loving aholic

3:48

and i just love nature and colors and my mind is looking at things going because each of the colors of glass that

3:54

i buy have a code number for them and i’m riding my bike thinking that’s 533 blue that’s

4:04

i take that piece of nature and turn it into glass because there’s such a it’s like doing a

4:10

3d sudoku puzzle or something when i’m building the pictures because to give it depth i have to figure out what can go

4:15

on the back side what will go on because the glass is really slippery and things will go flying all over the place

4:21

and it won’t work it’ll just be a mess if i can’t figure out the puzzle process of how to

4:27

layer it to fire the piece so those things all start happening before i even get in the

4:32

studio um and then when i’m in the studio i have a sample

4:39

every single thing that i make starts off with a sheet of glass like you can see here the sheets i order are

4:46

two feet by two feet and i order like a couple thousand dollars at a time and they ship

4:51

them in a big great here at the studio so if i want a little teeny piece of red to do uh

4:58

indian paintbrush i got to take a big sheet like this and cut one piece

5:03

so that’s part of the process um that’s definitely where it all starts

5:09

then some of the things i make have little t it’s like you have to make all your components before

5:14

you can even begin to do the assembly so i know you guys have a piece at the gallery there that’s called large

5:20

trees and there’s a little teeny tiny um nuggets their representation of the

5:27

pinecones i have to make those before i can even start the assembly and how you woke them is you take that

5:33

big switch to the glass and cut it into smaller than a quarter of an inch square

5:38

and then you put it in the kiln i’m just going to show you guys close up like that if you can oh wow

5:44

so you you heat the kiln to a full fuse and takes about 24 hours it melts it makes it like

5:49

a little puddle of honey on the shelf and that square contracts back and makes these nuggets so i can’t buy

5:55

nuggets in here so anytime you see a nugget in something um it’s i have to make it first right so

6:02

there’s a lot of preparation that goes into each individual piece

6:08

yes yeah for sure and i can actually show you also some of the assembly

6:13

everything i build starts off on one plane of clear glass

6:20

it doesn’t have to start it doesn’t have to be clear but i tend to build mostly unclear because i like translucent

6:28

all these pieces of glass after they’re cleaned if i can do that you can see it there bear with me

6:36

can you see that better yeah i’ve already seen a clear glass with all of the components i’m gonna

6:42

have to glue it down later on in the slideshow i have some pictures that show

6:48

each of the steps so maybe i’ll dip past that part now when we get to the slideshow like kind of talk you through when you have a

6:53

visual to look at yeah um but i can show you now actually if

6:59

you want so you build the whole thing it’s glued and it’s printed and you’re going to say what sprit fritz

7:04

is smashed up particles with glass so it comes in i don’t know if it’s going to work i tried to get a color that

7:10

might be visual i know it’s like sea salt but i can buy the brick

7:16

and you can get it of course like some salt or you can get it fine like that’s like that’s hard to tell

7:24

but um it’s like sugar or it can be like icing sugar

7:29

so i use all that it’s like painting with sand like a little tiny droplets of all the colors and sand all over the

7:34

place clean it up and then it goes in the kiln and it’s fired once um i have samples here to show

7:44

so it goes in the kiln after i’ve done all that work and then the piece will come out

7:52

flat oh so this is a sample you can see that it’s just a

7:57

with a clear piece of glass decorated with everything it’s all flat first firing then if it’s going to

8:03

become a dish versus a picture because depending on what you’re making there’s a million different processes to follow

8:10

yeah i bet you would put it on this is a slumping mold you can kind of see it has a curve

8:16

well it goes on the kiln again it gets fired one more time but this time not as hot like there’s different temperatures

8:22

for different techniques it’s not a pot now when it comes out you have this nice

8:29

does that show so i have a better sample

8:35

well that one was lovely so here’s an olive dish oh that’s

8:42

really neat okay you can see it’s got some shape and this

8:49

is the actual mold that it came out of so it was flat once it was flat and then it was slumped

8:57

to that shape that’s a i like that showing you that better than the square one because it didn’t have much shape to see

9:05

and i do have a quick question for you after the after it comes out of the kiln um because are you able to cut it in any

9:13

way because i’ve seen in like glass blowing that you’re able to kind of snip and pull and that kind of stuff um but

9:20

that doesn’t necessarily happen with this form of glasswork correct correct

9:25

i mean it’s technically possible to get a wet file saw and a piece of cap it’s not the

9:32

mainstream way that you created

9:38

yeah you like when you’re doing a private commission for people i often take pictures of the steps along

9:44

the way basically something because you can’t tweak it once it’s fired like a painter can

9:49

repaint or leave a different color of things up it might be like this if once it’s fired it’s

9:55

start from scratch again if you need to change anything typically yeah must be stressful work

10:04

well i couldn’t do it to myself someone but i mean some of you can keep this very simple

10:09

and just a couple pieces of color and make a nice little plate but it just isn’t my nature apparently

10:14

to do that like right if you want to add a lot of as much detail as i can get away with

10:19

yeah for sure speaking of detail let’s uh start on with the presentation because i

10:25

have some wonderful images that you’ve sent me and i would love our audience to get a look so

10:30

this one is very interesting i’m assuming this is the process in which you’re making a piece

10:35

just more um the nuggets on the side and then you’re starting to plan everything out

10:41

yeah the piece will just come to life like this was the first piece i made i had an injury a couple of years ago and

10:46

this was actually the first piece i could do when i could stand again in my studio and do glass

10:52

so like i didn’t have to hurry up and create anything in particular for a deadline i could just play

10:57

right just follow your inspiration and i wanted to play with this making a lot of reactions so

11:03

first step i played and made all these different nuggets those little squares that get melted

11:08

and then the second picture there i started to build them into components knowing kind of the flow and vibe i

11:15

wanted the piece to take but that was the very preliminary step so to go to the next slide

11:21

that’s a close-up of once i had all of those pieces that had curvature

11:26

were pre-made in a separate firing before they even made it to the master canvas of glass for the assembly and

11:34

they’re all glued down and then what you see there is a soft little edge of um

11:39

black on there that’s powder like icing sugar over the entire piece and then very

11:46

carefully with the paintbrush dust it off so there was just enough to antique it could help make all the colors pop

11:52

right you couldn’t see that without a close-up shot there and you can see that this particular piece has a

11:57

billion nuggets of all kinds and shapes on it yeah it does so first was the

12:04

laying everything down gluing it at the proper spot and then the powder on top

12:11

that’s right oh neat and before all of that all of the components had to be made all

12:17

right remains up yeah so yeah this part was the final easy part this one’s like

12:27

yeah it’s gorgeous i i love the movement of this piece it really shows that

12:33

there’s so much versatility with um with each piece that you’ve made and you’ve prepared and then it just

12:39

comes into this beautiful final work it’s one of those samples of sometimes

12:45

creation and the source and inspiration just comes from you don’t know why you’re doing it

12:51

you’re just doing it and like i didn’t have a plan for this i just started to

12:56

play and it started to unfold and when you have a piece like this it’s really fun because for me at the end the piece names itself

13:04

to me in there looking at it and then like boom it wants to be called i know that might

13:09

sound weird to some people but that’s how my artwork gets named sometimes um secret treasures along

13:16

the trail because to me it’s like maybe you found a feather there’s droplets of water sitting on a reef

13:22

somewhere and it’s all flowing like nature is all about flow and all the little teeny different

13:28

things that are hidden in it that like us like humans we all fit in this crazy story

13:34

called life and we’re all actually flown along so for me that’s why the thesis name

13:41

treasures along the trail and it’s it’s the one up i don’t i have never done another piece in the series

13:46

oh i love it it’s so unique it’s so peaceful and i really feel like it has a true

13:51

vibe of who you are as an artist and that playfulness that it brings um i know that we’ve talked about it

13:58

briefly before of what you kind of want your what your audience to feel um when

14:06

they’re looking at artwork and if you want to maybe explain to our to our audience tonight what you hope that people feel

14:13

when they when they see your artwork well i think a lot of people will say

14:19

that art is meant to evoke some kind of emotion and for me that emotion it absolutely

14:24

has to be joy and upliftment i know that there’s shock art out there and there’s political

14:30

statement art out there and that’s not my gig i just want to make the world a lighter place even if

14:36

you don’t know that it has lifted your spirit put a smile on your face when you’re looking at it

14:41

i know it has maybe it’s not your favorite art and you know you gotta be a person who’s called to that particular

14:46

color or designer but that’s the intention behind all of my art

14:51

is to share a little bit of that and also to share some of the magic of glass because glass is one of those subjects that are

14:58

topics or mediums that people say no never touch don’t touch and my favorite thing when i’m

15:03

doing a live show because most of my work is very textured and tactical

15:08

even a big grown up person who knows better than to touch can’t help but general reach out there and

15:14

touch it because you can’t be very tactile and it’s like can’t be

15:20

untouchable i love that mischievousness about it right this piece also really calls for the mad

15:26

scientist in my heart because when you have a close look at it there are certain colors of glass if they have

15:31

copper in them and if they have sulfur in them and backing up to that each piece of glass comes solid i cannot

15:38

paint it different colors but it’s blazing it’s got different minerals right in the sheet of glass

15:44

that make it that color so what i’m getting at with this one is that when copper and silver touch

15:49

they have a reaction and so when you look closely at this piece there are little spots where where the blue will touch the lime

15:56

and it turns brown so there’s a lot of mad science planned into this piece that’s so cool

16:01

and did you come across that on purpose or was that kind of a happy accident in

16:08

this particular piece i did it on purpose i was really well i’m going to take some time to play

16:13

with these reactions because i really wanted to see how i knew about what some

16:18

colors did but i thought i’m going to play with that aspect so some of the details it might look like i

16:24

put dark burgundy frit yeah east but it’s actually not dark burgundy it’s

16:30

clear for it that turns out burgundy when it touches the other colors wow that is i’m not knowing what it’s

16:36

going to look like until it was fired but i got to see it because that was done in the component level when i was building each

16:42

of the feathers and [Music] cool that’s awesome let’s move on to

16:49

this piece so again like you mentioned earlier those little nuggets you’ve created

16:54

individually and um it there’s so many in this in this piece i love the texture that it

17:00

creates and just the 3d element that it brings out as well i feel like i can just go ahead and touch

17:07

the leaves and they’re just about to fall off and somebody said to me when they first saw this they said hey

17:13

jelly pots really do grow on trees or whatever that skittles do grow

17:19

and that one the way i built it they all had to be a million colors and sizes and shapes so it would look more organic

17:25

there’s actually three underneath there because you don’t know where when you’re creating you

17:30

don’t know exactly where you’re going to lay each of those pieces right so it’s actually like the the rib

17:35

cage the stem everything is actually hiding behind there so that when it keeps through in spots

17:41

there’s no how come there’s no branch there so lots of layers and details in this

17:46

one that’s wonderful and the oh this this one’s my favorite i i

17:53

can’t get over how how dimensional these this one is here i’ll blow myself away some days because

18:00

they just keep getting when i look back at my early work and now i see these things it’s like oh they’re just like i started painting for

18:07

our time we had a painting i’m really clear that that’s making a difference in my glasswork too because it’s

18:13

got me daring to add depth and texture right this shows what this piece looks

18:19

like kind of at the happy hour golden hour of day when the sun is landing on it there’s opal glass on the

18:26

front of it which means the light doesn’t transmit through it so that you get the really bright red but if you show this next slide

18:34

when the when it’s backlit from behind you can it like now it makes everything else come

18:40

alive it gives the peace depth it’s like now you’re looking through at nightfall and you can see the lake in the distance and

18:47

there’s even wiggles in the lake and that’s all due to there’s painting on the back side with a high fire glass line

18:53

it’s not painted the high fire glass line thing i paint on the pieces and incorporate that

18:58

into them to be more expired yeah to give that extra depth but that’s this

19:04

demonstrates one of my favorite things about glass as well and why i seem to like making these translucent pictures is

19:11

you can view them from both sides and this picture here is actually both front views but they change

19:17

people think often this is two different pieces of artwork yeah but if you want it’s the same

19:22

image it’s just different lighting it’s been really fun to play with if you have a shelter glide and you push it in and out

19:29

like this you can see it spoken day to night like four o’clock on the sunset and the sun goes down and the moon comes

19:35

out yeah absolutely i love how uh it shows the versatility

19:41

of your artwork and especially the medium of glass because you can put this anywhere in

19:48

your home where you have a window where there’s a light or you can put it on the shelf wherever it may

19:54

fit in your home and it’s a completely different look wherever wherever it is depends it’s also like

20:01

you know when you get up in the morning having your coffee you look up and it’s like it’s glowing when the sun’s shining through

20:06

and then in the evening when the sun’s going down it’s still beautiful it’s just completely different i think that originally when i started

20:13

making these two-sided glass framed pieces in my mind i was thinking about how people

20:19

often get stuck in a cubicle and they don’t even have a little piece of joy at their office

20:24

that’s pretty harsh i don’t mean it like that you want to have something to put the smile and lift your spirits in your day

20:30

to have a little small piece of desk art which i originally intended for and i thought you know and then you get the

20:36

boss sitting at the desk and they’ve got the beautiful art that they can see but the poor guy who comes and sits on the

20:42

other side of the desk doesn’t get to enjoy it right i’m making it two-sided but like

20:47

this is so awesome about glass because now both parties can enjoy it at the same time quickly i love that

20:55

all right and then this one here i love how they’re all just a tad different as well so is this

21:02

a series that you created well this is part of the tree lover heart series okay yeah honestly i think

21:09

it’s like people love birch trees especially red ones and so do i and i love making them um so each one is always a little

21:15

bit different but when i mix up the the paint that i need to use it’s a high fire i should

21:21

like well i can show you later i don’t think it’s the biggest deal it’s a little super paint and it has a little teeny silver enamel

21:27

tip and i have to squeeze it out like writing happy birthday on a cake right those trees are painted on the

21:32

glass and then to get the detailing into the trunks i literally have high tech tools

21:38

like uh a stick skin that i use spiral it around so you have to work with it while it’s wet so the reason i

21:44

do a couple at a time is because it takes it’s time-wise it takes a lot of time to mix up the paint

21:50

and then you’re going you might as well make a cup hole so and i like to just sit down and make a couple at a time and then the ones on

21:57

the top were different samples used for some summer birches that i did um but before i even start painting

22:04

those i actually have to meticulously fit inside and cut the mountains all the glass

22:09

from the backside right because if it doesn’t line up straight then it doesn’t make a nice square formed picture so

22:15

those get glued done first and then or sorry cut ground and glue

22:23

paint the top on when that paint dries i need to actually go back in with a carving tool

22:28

because if you stand on here like especially the top middle one some of the bottoms of the tree’s sloppy and blobby and stuff so when that

22:36

paint dries i go in and clean the whole thing up and then finally ready for the stage

22:41

called christine that’s wonderful and then the kiln

22:49

that’s where some real magic happens people want to know where’s your kiln

22:54

well it’s definitely not in my house it’s in my garage my studio is in my home where

23:00

i can say that like i’m in my facebook studio here right now and i just take it out to

23:06

the garage and that’s where the magic happens

23:11

i think the kiln shelf is like almost 30 inches by 30 inches so in the world of film

23:19

that’s a sample of one of the finished birch trees

23:25

i’m just gonna pop back to the image when it was in the process just so folks can see that again so

23:32

afterwards did you add the yellow onto on top and then you put that yeah that’s the

23:38

part where i’m like painting with sand roll with the right okay yeah i just have a little

23:44

teeny call it a scoop shovel it’s kind of like a square spoon and you literally are tapping you’re holding or

23:49

tapping it and letting it foam painting it and it gets all over the place and then you have to use a paintbrush

23:55

and pulp it off like if you look at the final picture there’s no there’s no fritz on top of

24:01

the white bark of the trees and that’s because i have to go in and dust it all off carefully pushing this particle

24:07

to get the effects it’s very precise yeah it gets intense so i can’t always

24:13

do it for eight hours a day like kind of fun go sit up in my kitchen and do the painting part

24:20

and then when i’m down in the studio here doing the print work you you only do a couple at a time and then

24:25

you just have to stop because it gets too intense sometimes yeah i can imagine it’s probably quite difficult

24:32

on your body as well because you’re probably leaning and and moving your arms around and

24:38

straining your head over with the paint brush like this without touching anything else so guys

24:45

are right it is awesome

24:50

and this is um this is a good example or a bunch of slides here where it shows how it started from inspiration and it

24:58

will lead us through the slideshow to the finished piece so always when i was a little girl it’s always like going out to radium and

25:04

driving on that highway you can see this wicked wonderful shade of turquoise blue mountain water

25:10

canyon so that’s where the inspiration shots where i took the summer but there’s always more to it because i have

25:17

to i’m out there going i got to get an angle where i can actually know i can cut the glass because glass

25:23

glass is a light could be cut in a square or a sharp 90 degree angles it has to have curves

25:28

and fits so it’s like yeah i don’t know i know it works so there’s the composite

25:34

in a minute painted on the back side and after it’s painted i also carve it yeah then next slide

25:42

after that i grew it onto the master clear piece of glass and then more stuff on the front so i

25:49

painted trees on the front and then the rocks are painted and then they’re carved and scratched and

25:54

then when that’s all cleaned up then i added the indian paint brushes so that now i can finally get to the

25:59

fritting part here you can’t even see the trees behind the green

26:05

right now so it’s crazy on your eyes that you sometimes too and i’ll work

26:11

sometimes on a light table so that i can actually see the results right if you want to leave me the next

26:18

there’s a close-up of the final piece and i have it i don’t know if it’s going

26:24

to look any different but i’ll try and zoom it in for you to have a look

26:31

yeah it’s gorgeous i love that the texture in the water and

26:36

the color in the water you just totally nailed it that’s exactly what that river looks like when i saw that water’s

26:45

like oh my god i know i’ve got that color of glass this is happening so yeah this is the

26:50

first in the marvel i’m sure i’ll make a couple more marvel canyon scenes because one of my favorite stops and wonderful

26:56

as i’m concerned i almost can’t have a nature image without flowers so that’s

27:02

why and here in marble canyon there are indian paint brushes or paintbrushes

27:07

fireweed and stuff so i did my own artistic license of combining them together

27:12

yeah i love it and those the the flowers on the bottom so to create those nuggets do you have

27:18

to make more of um like a cylinder almost with the glass like you have to instead of using

27:24

little squares to make the nuggets is it just a longer well sometimes i cut them so i didn’t

27:31

show you what my master tools are but i will show you those yeah this and i get it up there

27:38

there that’s my cutting tool on the tip here there’s a tiny little wheel diamond point and i score the glass

27:46

which i mean you know i can you i don’t know if it’s gonna work i try to color that there you can see that line on the

27:51

glass yeah you have to score it and then you snap it so if i can do this because i made one

27:57

sample for you oh okay when you score it you can snap

28:04

it but it doesn’t like to go in a circle how am i going to be able to show you

28:10

guys but um there’s probably about seven little

28:15

no i can’t see there you go can you see it oh yeah whatever um

28:21

so there’s a whole bunch of little shards and that’s from cutting one circle that’s it you know the moon

28:27

or the oh one oh it’s a little circle like this that had to be snapped

28:33

so you see that snap well you can snap it with your hands or i have two different flyer tools

28:40

that you can also get a hold of the glass like this and snap it seven or eight times just to get

28:46

a circle and then that has to be ground so that i have it and i don’t know if that works yeah yep

28:52

every circle doesn’t know perfect circles are hard it’s fine yeah

28:59

well they’re side tangent on cutting glass and like tools that’s awesome what was your other

29:05

question no worries don’t worry at all um speaking of cutting glass uh we

29:12

kind of joked about it earlier about your safety goggles um but have you ever had like obviously

29:18

glass can can cause damage and cause harm so how do you deal with that and how do you deal with

29:24

safety in your studio it’s amazing how once you get going in this

29:30

you you don’t think about it too much it’s like when i teach classes when people come and say yeah if you’ve never

29:36

done this before it won’t be long it’d be sticking your hand there digging around looking for that perfect shape and you get pretty comfortable

29:42

with it you know if you get a sliver in your hand just push it around in the water and pull it away like this and then

29:48

band-aids and any good day down here in major production i’ve got them all over my head

29:53

right it’s moving just a little poke you know you practice safely you wear gloves when you’re dealing with the big

29:59

shoes that you don’t wear gloves doing the little work because it’s yeah sticks and snags so i have to show

30:05

you my favorite safety thing

30:13

[Laughter]

30:19

you have to wear that when you’re working with the powders and when you’re keeping a kiln shelf like i put it in the kiln but

30:26

backing up there um you can’t just stick it in the kiln you have to paint the shelves with a special film wash glass doesn’t stick to it so

30:34

every time you feel like that because it’s still like a dusting powder you always want to be wearing a respirator and dispose of things

30:40

safely and don’t do it in your house like you know i think scraping out in the garage and then there’s

30:46

foot fans and things you can use to suck the air out right now powder in your space as well and i

30:52

don’t use a lot of powder when i do i keep it to a minimum because i really don’t like wearing that thing

30:57

either yeah absolutely and i can imagine that that’s not

31:02

um like i can imagine that it’s an ex almost an expensive uh product that you have to use

31:10

the powder or the yeah the powder yeah oh you know that’s a good question all of this glass is expensive yeah when

31:18

you look at it and you see those sheets it looks like the same stuff that people use for stained glass right but it’s not

31:25

okay in fact right now there is only one source in the world that we know of that

31:30

supplies the glass that i used which is called well maybe now is two there’s a couple of fringe companies that are starting to

31:36

make it but it’s called system 986 class which means it cools and expands it’s coefficient is 96 it cools and expands

31:44

at the rate of 96. there’s another company that has a different coefficient but you can’t mix the two together

31:50

because if like if red doesn’t if the red cools and expands at a different rate than the blue

31:56

and they’re right beside each other on a plate they will crack in half so right the coefficient has to be the

32:01

same for all the colors so there’s just one company right now and they’ve shipped it they’re down to mexico so it was in the united

32:08

states this stuff was actually invented in the late 70s in the pacific northwest

32:13

by a couple of different companies bullseye and spectrum and euroboros all the guys who started those companies

32:19

came up with this it wasn’t even a thing you couldn’t even do fusing prior to that because

32:25

you couldn’t get there was no supply right you made us you could buy sheets of this and build things that when you melted

32:32

them together they wouldn’t crack in half right so when i order it i have to order a lot because it comes

32:39

from a from the well i don’t get it right from mexico they ship it to a warehouse in the states and i order from there

32:45

because i don’t know where you can buy it locally very much by the sheep right

32:52

and you mentioned that it comes in a crate because i imagine they have to be quite careful when they’re shipping the

32:58

glass i’m going to join pick up i’m going to pick this thing up and show give you guys a view if i can i don’t know yeah

33:06

so this is my i thought it’d be more fun to show you my little crazy corner of the world where i do all of the work so that’s my

33:12

cutting table there’s a grid underneath it is it working

33:17

yeah say that that’s the crate oh okay i see sorry

33:26

i can’t get down by facing the camera to see what you’re looking at oh yeah there these big and they they

33:33

don’t the guys can’t lift them off the truck it has to come with one of those jack dollies or dolly jacks i brought

33:39

tailgates and i bought a big board so they could ramp it into my garage and i carried every sheet two at a time into

33:46

the studio in the house wow that’s awesome

33:53

all right and i want to show this other uh process one that we have here because you have a little wonderful

33:59

animal in it so i really like making winter scapes so

34:05

that’s kind of what started this a couple of years ago i made a couple winter escapes we had a bush or two and one had a

34:10

little enough shot and then i’m like i want to do but something else but i’m not it’s really hard to cut that

34:17

tiny detail into it that’s that little guy is a polar bear and he’s probably sizing your thumbnail

34:23

and not not technically possible to make those cuts and so for years it doesn’t go on my

34:29

radar but i do teach christmas ornaments classes and make christmas ornaments and have to drill a hole in those ornaments

34:37

one day um i saw this artwork of uh someone had done an artwork of a bear

34:42

and it was all abstract and crazy and i looked at him i had this big brainstorm like oh my god you should do the you should have the

34:49

little bear below it and then do the big bear the big dipper in the sky yeah i have a piece that’s called

34:55

anyways that got me going but i’m gonna do it i’m gonna do polar bears so i had to figure out how to do polar bears

35:01

right well

35:07

oh my gosh it’s so tiny yeah well he’s made by cutting the piece

35:14

of glass a small i can like that and then i actually use a drill under water where you can’t see

35:23

and i’m i’m gonna figure it out and get those little dips to make his legs and definition on them and then

35:30

you can’t zoom in there but if anyone gets a chance to see the actual piece in the gallery because we have it there um

35:36

he’s painted so he will scrape the white fur in his

35:43

to get the detail of the eye and the ear and like well oh no i never thought this through it’s gonna be a big boy

35:50

you know but i never have done it right i actually use a pin yeah a tiny little

35:57

pin into the paint and carefully put it on there yeah because it needs to be you know

36:04

proper proper portion right ratio

36:09

yeah yeah this is the first step to make them and so i have a piece called you’re never really alone that the little bear

36:16

with the big bear the big dipper and the first one but then i started

36:21

thinking i love these polar bears i’m gonna make some more so i did a couple that there’s like midnight rendezvous

36:27

and that kind of thing double pieces but this guy that you have here like well i also color and there’s not a

36:33

lot of color at night in them the summer tundra series so if we go to

36:39

the next and and so that one i this one’s got more to because it’s got all the glass on the back

36:44

and then the polar bear on the front and this one also has glass on the front so it’s kind of like the two pictures and

36:50

layers together so this is just the rough cuts you can see and then all those pieces are actually cut and browned and cleaned

36:56

and glued on and then next one then uh it’s printed so this picture

37:02

here it’s not fired but you can see that it’s all kind of little bits of sand and then

37:13

you see these things oh those are very interesting you make these by making a pot melt

37:21

where there’s a hole in the bottom of the kiln and you put a bunch of different colored glass in the pot that’s got a hole in

37:27

the bottom of it yeah that pulls through the kiln and then you’re standing underneath the kiln hitting these glass spaghetti around to

37:34

get some and then i have a container full of these wild and crazy stringer noodles

37:40

like colored spaghetti and i snap them so i can get the curvature i want to make the branches and the bushes

37:47

there wow another component thing where you got to make stuff before you get to assemble and also play it there

37:54

and then this one you can see the little like googles and research what kind of flowers they have in the arctic and there’s some kind of little

38:00

blue ones which i forget the names of now but it’s like yeah

38:09

wow it’s so amazing to think of how many steps go into this process

38:15

and how unpredictable it must be and and especially when you’re making

38:20

your little noodles you don’t know exactly how they’re going to turn out and you just kind of got to go with it

38:29

one of those you get to be in your on it and you just have to do it yeah absolutely and now this one i know

38:36

has a good story behind it so for the audience i wanted to

38:41

uh ask you uh what was your favorite mistake you’ve ever made

38:46

you’re looking at my favorite that’s a close-up of my favorite mistake

38:53

so this piece here yeah you’ll see it in the picture better but i still have it i’ll have it forever as a

39:00

reminder because sometimes the most perfect intentions they all go south and it’s not the end

39:05

of the day it actually leads you on a journey to an even better place so the name for this first piece and all

39:11

of them are called lemony snippets and what happened was um i used to not have the kiln in my

39:18

house and i was on a skincare so i made this big bowl that was supposed to look like just one giant

39:23

lamb and when you looked into it right and i was getting things fired at

39:28

another studio that was just a teaching studio and they really didn’t know the art of firing something four inches deep you

39:35

have to go really slow maybe multiple firings to get something that was slumped properly in shape so

39:41

the thing cracked in half in the kiln so i haven’t talked about now what am i going to do we can’t fix it and then i was carrying another

39:48

tray of little too many lemons that were like sliced lemons on ice that i was making for someone and it

39:54

uh not because i didn’t have my own films that was such a matter how to do this that i would rent films and carry cookie sheets with bowls

40:00

of paper round pieces and drive across town to get them fired somewhere else well one of those fell

40:06

and hit the ground on the car

40:12

whatever for a while and then i got this idea because another ghost artist i joined a little glass field here once

40:19

years ago and i didn’t know anything when i was starting out and they said well bring some of your

40:24

samples come visit us and bring your samples we’ll have coffee donuts and glass parties talk about whatever together

40:30

encourage each other and help each other so i showed her my stuff and i guess i had some pretty awesome

40:36

stuff because this lady caught a class later and she pulled out a hammer and says to the class okay everybody

40:42

this is the most important tool that glass artists will ever have for you julianna

40:48

and so when this happened to me and she was saying it fun and friendly like i said yeah hey

40:54

guess what sue i finally used my hammer and i smashed these pieces up and made these abstract competitions like

41:00

this because you can actually see some sections like bigger and measurable things um but i have a close-up of this

41:07

because they were i also tried making my own print back then using the coffee grinder so you put the glass in and

41:14

well it won’t quite work but you actually need to use a serious hardcore magnet to get the little metal clicks

41:19

out because you’re wrecking the coffee grinder and if you close you can see these little black dots so that’s like my

41:24

humble reminder that there’s little pieces of coffee grinder in this bowl

41:29

but that’s unless we’re the name because that crazy movie lemony snickets was out and i thought well this is such a

41:35

perfect perfect name this is my series of my unfortunate events it’s going to be

41:40

so many snippets though i love it and then if you go to the next slide

41:47

that’s the actual bowl so it’s not even slumped straight the edges are crooked so that’s what was i thinking a lot of people saying you have

41:55

to wheel me that bowl and i’m like yeah that’s not very nice but okay you know i mean let’s not talk about

42:00

me willing anything anyway um if you go to the next slide

42:05

this gave birth to done in my opinion this is how they should be done

42:13

and so the plot thickens you know you think that’s it that’s so we’ve got lemony snippets it’s awesome but then

42:19

i’ve mexico a zillion times and you can get in a lot of trouble and save myself speaking vanish so i know that

42:27

spanish people don’t have lemons they that mexico doesn’t have lemons they have only limon and it’s a lime so that’s the

42:34

green one on the left here it’s called memory snickets and that’s the final

42:40

piece in the that’s what’s series enough to be breakfast and orange glass

42:46

is feeling to do orange and there’s no such thing as orangey snippets so that’s it for this series

42:54

that’s so glad there’s so much character to these

43:00

pieces and uh they feel very retro but but like they’re coming back sometimes

43:07

they’re really they’re tactile too you can touch them i mean that texture on the back side

43:14

whereas the first one was very smooth right when i first did this i actually did some close-up photographs of my

43:20

process and they looked so cool we turned them into chiclay prince where i get some extra detailing on the kitchen

43:28

that’s wonderful that’s such a great idea i love how how this whole process there’s so many

43:33

different components to it and that they can each lead to so many different projects and so many different series

43:40

oh no yeah but i don’t know all of that when it starts to just follow that bee

43:45

in your bonnet and do it and then get to get another idea off of

43:50

it the glass often is like look at this green color like i didn’t think about oh yeah i went

43:57

to mexico and that’s what the lines are i just thought i’m looking at the green glass in the studio going i’m getting

44:03

tired of making yellow ones today what others would i do and it’s like hey

44:08

and that’s the green glass was just like a perfect balance of the colors

44:14

and then it turned out hey that’s the mommy snippet so you follow your telephone and it tells you when it’s done exactly and to end our

44:22

little presentation here i have your favorite piece next so if you could tell us a little bit

44:28

about this one this is my favorite piece because when i

44:33

made it i think i had in mind that i never often people say doesn’t it hurt you to give away or sell

44:40

your pieces aren’t just bad to see them go i’m like no the pace is rent and makes it so i can keep going i can keep doing my

44:46

art and sharing it with the world i love it but when i made this piece i said this

44:52

is my piece because this piece is made up of about five or six

44:57

pieces that got the hammer it’s a memory for me of how beautiful

45:04

taking the scraps and bits of elements that didn’t work out sort of like some people think this

45:09

didn’t work in my life and that didn’t work in my life but when you look at the big picture all of those little components that you

45:15

didn’t think were so important made you who you are today and you wouldn’t have the inspiration to happen

45:22

the moment you’re in if not for all those things you weren’t happy about before so it’s my goal i’m never giving it away

45:30

i don’t even have any more for sale because i can’t make the i wish i could zoom in on the

45:36

picture and show you better but it has it has a lot of different techniques that i like like

45:41

it’s got texture on the back side it was fired up how many times to get texture and then you can see the

45:48

texture on the backside like that wow and that adds sparkle on the front

45:54

side and then there’s reaction glass in there and there’s little nuggets and components

45:59

and i love that the edge is organic and it’s not perfect it’s perfect with all its

46:06

imperfections it’s such a good sentiment well and one

46:11

of the pieces in there was an angel i was making this huge angel woman and

46:17

she blew up in my film like she it cracked in half it was yeah from the gods if you believe

46:23

in that stuff and i do but you know like oh she took me so long to make it so there’s a little piece of

46:29

an angel in this oh that’s so sweet

46:36

wonderful well uh thank you so much for showing us your studio and teaching us

46:41

about glassworks i’m i want to do it myself it seems like the perfect

46:47

the perfect process for me you would have to quarantine but you can

46:52

come take a class wonderful that sounds great awesome well thank you all so much for

46:59

joining us this evening if you want to check out juliana’s inventory that we have at the shop in

47:04

our at the art gallery of alberta we are open um thursday to saturday and we’re

47:10

actually open this sunday starting uh september 27th so you folks can

47:15

come on by see juliana’s work and i believe she also has a website as well and just started an etsy

47:21

shop i

47:32

google giuliana reese at sea or giuliani’s class and the best place to see my work is

47:38

coming down the pipe if you want to see the newest stuff it seems to be instagram because i have

47:44

it on my phone and often i’ll be in the studio and snap pictures as i’m going whereas i don’t always put

47:50

facebook and the other social media things on my phone because it’s just too much keep going up so

47:56

you really want to be in the know what’s happening next join instagram it’s all pictures no

48:01

rants i love it and your newsletter yes yes if you can

48:07

sign up for my newsletter at my website um and i try to keep them minimal once a month or so unless it’s

48:13

show season but it’s always here’s some pretty pictures here’s the next shows here’s the next

48:18

classes and you can just if there’s something you’re looking for you have questions you can always just email me

48:24

if there’s a piece that i have that is on the gallery or you hit right that’s on my website or you saw it in tonight’s

48:31

show and it’s not in the gallery they can contact you and you can contact me and we can make

48:37

arrangements whatever way we need to give coordinate stuff but just because it’s not in your gallery

48:44

doesn’t mean it’s not available for you through the gallery wonderful

48:49

thank you so much again juliana have a fantastic evening thank you everybody thank you all good

48:56

day be well hey thanks bye bye

No results found