In a small studio behind her home, local artist Rosa Taylor painstakingly arranges tiny pieces of glass on top of one another before baking them in a small kiln in her basement for 24 hours.
Even after working with glass for decades, she said she is still surprised every time she opens the kiln to see how the different colours and layers of glass have melted together.
“Sometimes it’s not the best surprise but most of the time it’s just the ‘wow factor’ when you open it up,” Taylor said.
“You’ve created something out of a piece of glass and all of a sudden it’s a piece of art.”
Taylor, who sells her work through ART Glass Studio (www.artglassstudio.ca) took her first class in 1988 and opened up her own shop on Whyte Avenue two years later.
Several years ago she closed her shop and now works from her St. Albert home.
Growing up in the Netherlands, Taylor said she remembers being awed by the stained glass that is a feature of many of the older buildings there.
“I can remember the churches and the castles,” she said.
Her love affair with glass was rekindled in the 1980s after she attended an art show.
“I used to go to the gift show and somebody had a piece and I fell in love with it,” said Taylor, who has a fine arts diploma from Grant MacEwan University.
“I actually have it upstairs in my living room. I bought it for me and I had to find out how it was done.”
Her mission led her to the U.S. where she found artists working in glass were more commonplace. To this day, she buys all her materials — she uses primarily compatible glass for her artwork — in Oregon.
“When I started, they were the only people who were selling compatible glass,” she said.
Although many different kinds of glass exist, Taylor says it’s a very specific type she’s after.
“You have to be able to heat it and cool it and it has to expand at the same rate. If it doesn’t expand at the same rate, it cracks,” she said.
In her studio, Taylor cuts the glass by hand, then arranges it before baking it in her kiln.
“You can’t open it when it’s warm, you have to wait until it’s totally cool because glass is fragile,” Taylor said.
Even if she doesn’t like what she sees, the piece can be added to, which is the beauty of art, she says.
“It’s a learning experience so everything that you do, the glass is never wasted. You can reuse the glass,” said Taylor.
“So every time I do something, the next time it’s different because you know you can build on it.”
These days, much of her work is Christmas themed. She also creates glass masks and large installation pieces although she admits, at present, she is somewhat restricted by the small size of her kiln.
Several times a year, she also teaches art classes to local students at Profiles Art Gallery in St. Albert. With her help, students cut, grind and decorate their own glass ornaments.
“I like teaching the class, especially to the kids because I get a whole different perspective every time I see their glass,” she said.
“They don’t have any fixed ideas on how it should work so they’re willing to experiment so I really like teaching because they teach me as much as I teach them.”
