Bursting with pumpkin, vanilla and black hand-pulled murrine, and bisected by a soaring bird, this bowl hangs on a hefty forged hook.
The murrine elements are sections individually cut from hand-pulled glass cane, which the artist creates by heating glass to 1500°F and pulling it into rods while molten in a modern-day adaptation of the 16th century techniques of the Murano glassmakers. After snipping the cane into tiny cylinders, the murrine are then melted together into a contiguous whole, which is cooled and then shaped on a lapidary wheel to fit precisely with the other elements. The black and cream stripes are individual strips of glass, set on edge and fused together in their own toasty trip through the kiln before being shaped on the lapidary wheel. The final work of art is the result of five firings.