Frederick Warren and Jeff Van Hassel

Frederick Warren Glass

“Born in fire, colored by the sun, kissed by the moon, shaped by wind and water”

These words echo in my mind as I work on this current series.  Travels to the American Southwest and recurring dreams provide focus.  No doubt, the rock gardens I built in my youth play themselves out again in my glass.

I make my own color.  Images are created and controlled during the blowing.  After cooling, many forms are cut, ground and shaped before all are acid-etched.

 My involvement with opaque silver glass began during my training in 1970.  Boyce Lundstrom’s strong background in glaze calculations (reduction colors, copper reds) led him to experiment with silver.  Under his supervision, I mixed, loaded, adjusted reduction and oxidation levels, dumped batches, recalculated, reloaded—learning to perfect the glass in the furnace.  Boyce went on to use this knowledge to create colors and ‘Cats Paw’ Design in ‘Bull’s Eye’ Sheet Glass.  I spent the next two years in my first studio, focusing on my interest in finding all the ways I could to create line designs and color ranges—most importantly, to control them.

In August, 1994, my daughter and I traveled to the Grand Canyon and surrounding parks.  From the inspiration of this trip, my current work began.  The silver glass had been waiting for me to bring it forward.  It allows me to focus on images—painting in glass.  I developed new methods of drilling, carving, and acid etching to give me the shapes, openings, and surfaces I want. 

 The glass that you see here today is a single homogenous mixture that can give a wide array of opaque colors.  What’s in the glass is a mix of tin, silver, and copper.  Knowing how to melt the batch starts to get you there.  More important is to know how to work the glass during blowing.  Each design and color range requires a different approach.  In general, early in the process, I work the surface to create a memory that with heating/cooling will produce the desired results.  Adjusting how I work produces different colors and patterns in the next piece.

for Frederick Warren

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