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Glass Treasures | Artist Beth Bowser
Written By: Donna Rhodes | Issue: 2021/09 – September
Beth Bowser
Glass artist Beth Bowser was fascinated with stained glass creations as a child.
Perhaps the transcendent way light shone through the church windows was a calling not only to glass artistry but to
the ministry.
She began studying glass art in 1980, working around her other calling. It’s no surprise her first class was in stained glass. After several decades of working with and learning the qualities, challenges, tools, and vocabulary of stained glass, she upped the ante and began exploring the art of heating/melting glass.
Kiln-formed glass is just what it sounds like. Put glass in a kiln and use heat to shape it to a desired finished product. However, it isn’t quite that simple. Each piece needs a firing schedule that controls how fast the glass is heated and held at certain temperatures, and how slowly it cools down. Once it has completely cooled, the kiln can be opened to reveal the richly colored, textural, heavenly outcome, and sometimes havoc that a hot furnace can create.
Beth continually experiments with the many methods of kiln-formed glass including slumping, draping, pressed glass, pot melts, castings, bumps, and freehand sculptures.
Her next adventure is to experiment with combing glass, which requires a special ”rake” to “comb” through layers of molten glass (think 1600+ degrees F) to create a new pattern of color, depth, and mystique.
Over the decades Beth has designed stained glass pieces as well as kiln-formed pendants, plates, vases, trays, serving dishes, glass sculptures, and more.
She’s owned small kilns along the way, but in early 2020 she happened upon a very large kiln at a price she couldn’t refuse.
She laughs and says, “The thing is so big, I tell my friends that if I go missing to check the kiln first.”
Beth’s work can be found in The Bascom Gift Shop, Gallery 1 in Sylva, and in the Tsartistry Gallery on US 64W in Franklin. She also welcomes guests to her studio by appointment. Contact her by email at [email protected].
