Glass done with class
Jul 22, 2010 | 315 views | 0 
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SPARKS — High atop a hill overlooking Spanish Springs sits a 3,200-square-foot blank canvas.
The canvas’ artist is Shelley McDonald. A longtime resident of the area, McDonald was formerly a glass artist trapped in the body of a businesswoman. For 30 years she used her skills to make porcelain teeth by day, while going home at night and making earrings, necklaces, bowls — anything to free up her creativity from the jaws of tedium.
“Every tenth of a millimeter makes a difference in that world,” she said recalling the dull precision of her former occupation.
Today, McDonald is working on a new business creating and marketing architectural applications for her glass art. She recently purchased a tile company in Las Vegas, which included 400 unique master molds she intends to use to create one-of-a-kind glass pieces. She wants to use colorful glass in places typically reserved for tile, porcelain or other less fragile materials. Strolling around her house it is apparent that she is using her abode as a testing ground. Many doors and walls have already been adorned with her work and there are many blank spaces waiting to be filled.
Anything goes when it comes to McDonald’s creativity: light fixtures, bathroom counters, shower walls, door frames, windows. Just about anywhere there is empty space, McDonald will find a way to make her fused glass art fit there.
Part of the difficulty, however, is the fragility of the material she works with. Not only does glass break easily anyway, melting different types of glass together doesn’t always work. The bonds will not necessarily hold if the piece survives the 1,200-degree process to begin with.
“It’s not something the average glass worker does,” said Chris Minn, president of Tech Support for the Arts, a company in Eugene, Ore. that is helping McDonald market her architectural glass products. In trying to have her work incorporated in hotels and casinos, Minn said McDonald is venturing into unusual venues. One of her pieces is already on display at the Siena Hotel Spa Casino in downtown Reno.
“It’s certainly not an area that has been fully explored in terms of art glass,” he said.
When making fused glass art, McDonald said many people try to recycle window or bottle glass. She prefers to stick with expensive art glass because it both looks better and works better for what she does.
Over the years, she has acquired a large collection of kilns and other tools for shaping and fusing the glass pieces she meticulously puts together. Sometimes McDonald uses photographs and overlays glass pieces, other times she uses her imagination and eye for color and design when piecing together thousands of tiny glass shards.
Then, the patchwork goes into a kiln to be heated until it melts into one solid piece. Sometimes the piece lies flat, other times she places it onto a mold so it takes on a three-dimensional shape. One such example that was in McDonald’s kiln last week was a four-foot glass guitar that had been placed on a mold shaped like a nude woman’s torso. After being fired, the guitar took on the contours of the mold.
When it comes to her business goals, McDonald said she has to balance going creatively cuckoo and being commercially viable.
“It may be better to blow your own mind and hope somebody gets you,” McDonald said.
In addition to working on the business side, McDonald is teaching a series of classes at Truckee Meadows Community College on fused glass. Even if it is just something small, McDonald said the fused glass medium is easy to work with and make something beautiful in the first minute. She said she spends very little time talking to students about the process and more time circling the room observing the students who immediately become engrossed in it.
“I love seeing how 20 different people can come up with 20 wonderfully different designs,” McDonald said. “We crank up the music and have fun.”
For information on McDonald’s fused glass classes at TMCC, go to http://wdce.tmcc.edu and click on classroom courses, then arts/crafts or call 829-9010. The first class, Fused Glass Bowls, is on July 31 and costs $49 plus a $55 material fee. The deadline to register for this class is Friday. She will be conducting a total of seven classes, all of which are listed on the website.
McDonald has just started a website for her business at www.juniperstudios.biz. There is not much information on it yet, but there will be soon, she said.
The canvas’ artist is Shelley McDonald. A longtime resident of the area, McDonald was formerly a glass artist trapped in the body of a businesswoman. For 30 years she used her skills to make porcelain teeth by day, while going home at night and making earrings, necklaces, bowls — anything to free up her creativity from the jaws of tedium.
“Every tenth of a millimeter makes a difference in that world,” she said recalling the dull precision of her former occupation.
Today, McDonald is working on a new business creating and marketing architectural applications for her glass art. She recently purchased a tile company in Las Vegas, which included 400 unique master molds she intends to use to create one-of-a-kind glass pieces. She wants to use colorful glass in places typically reserved for tile, porcelain or other less fragile materials. Strolling around her house it is apparent that she is using her abode as a testing ground. Many doors and walls have already been adorned with her work and there are many blank spaces waiting to be filled.
Anything goes when it comes to McDonald’s creativity: light fixtures, bathroom counters, shower walls, door frames, windows. Just about anywhere there is empty space, McDonald will find a way to make her fused glass art fit there.
Part of the difficulty, however, is the fragility of the material she works with. Not only does glass break easily anyway, melting different types of glass together doesn’t always work. The bonds will not necessarily hold if the piece survives the 1,200-degree process to begin with.
“It’s not something the average glass worker does,” said Chris Minn, president of Tech Support for the Arts, a company in Eugene, Ore. that is helping McDonald market her architectural glass products. In trying to have her work incorporated in hotels and casinos, Minn said McDonald is venturing into unusual venues. One of her pieces is already on display at the Siena Hotel Spa Casino in downtown Reno.
“It’s certainly not an area that has been fully explored in terms of art glass,” he said.
When making fused glass art, McDonald said many people try to recycle window or bottle glass. She prefers to stick with expensive art glass because it both looks better and works better for what she does.
Over the years, she has acquired a large collection of kilns and other tools for shaping and fusing the glass pieces she meticulously puts together. Sometimes McDonald uses photographs and overlays glass pieces, other times she uses her imagination and eye for color and design when piecing together thousands of tiny glass shards.
Then, the patchwork goes into a kiln to be heated until it melts into one solid piece. Sometimes the piece lies flat, other times she places it onto a mold so it takes on a three-dimensional shape. One such example that was in McDonald’s kiln last week was a four-foot glass guitar that had been placed on a mold shaped like a nude woman’s torso. After being fired, the guitar took on the contours of the mold.
When it comes to her business goals, McDonald said she has to balance going creatively cuckoo and being commercially viable.
“It may be better to blow your own mind and hope somebody gets you,” McDonald said.
In addition to working on the business side, McDonald is teaching a series of classes at Truckee Meadows Community College on fused glass. Even if it is just something small, McDonald said the fused glass medium is easy to work with and make something beautiful in the first minute. She said she spends very little time talking to students about the process and more time circling the room observing the students who immediately become engrossed in it.
“I love seeing how 20 different people can come up with 20 wonderfully different designs,” McDonald said. “We crank up the music and have fun.”
For information on McDonald’s fused glass classes at TMCC, go to http://wdce.tmcc.edu and click on classroom courses, then arts/crafts or call 829-9010. The first class, Fused Glass Bowls, is on July 31 and costs $49 plus a $55 material fee. The deadline to register for this class is Friday. She will be conducting a total of seven classes, all of which are listed on the website.
McDonald has just started a website for her business at www.juniperstudios.biz. There is not much information on it yet, but there will be soon, she said.
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