This month beautiful and inspired glass artwork is on exhibition at One World Gifts and Gallery in Sugarhouse. The two exhibiting artists came to this medium as adults with grown children and\u00a0 neither had formal training in it.<\/p>\n
![\"Ruth](\"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Ruth-Ann-Garner-4.jpg\")
<\/a>Glass dish by Ruth Ann Garner<\/p><\/div>\n
Ruth Ann Garner took art classes in high school, but her careers in technology and in raising a family took precedence for many years. \u201cI had just come back from San Francisco [she had seen glass art there] and wondered how it was done and whether I could do it, too,\u201d she says of tackling this new medium. That was three years ago.\u00a0 She credits her training as a computer scientist with helping her. \u201cI think glass fusing is helped by using a disciplined, almost scientific approach.\u201d<\/p>\n
Garner started reading about glass art and researching the web, and decided to try the medium on her own. Melted glass bottles were popular then, so she started there. \u201cIt was a good thing to start with because it was relatively easy and the materials were inexpensive. It was a good way to learn how to use a kiln. I told my book club that I needed glass bottles; within a month I had a garage full of them.\u201d She soon joined the Glass Art Guild of Utah (GAGU) where members were generous in showing her techniques and short-cuts. After experimenting and perfecting her techniques for the first couple of years she got a larger kiln which allows her to create bigger pieces and to fuse more pieces in one session.<\/p>\n
Hollstein\u2019s favorite piece in the show features an image of a cowboy. \u201cI don\u2019t know \u2013 he\u2019s just a happy guy. It\u2019s\u00a0 more spontaneous than the others. It\u2019s not all glass fragments – for example one side of his face is the painted background. I wanted to see if I could exactly match what I painted to the glass parts of the image.\u201d She starts any given piece with a painted background and then builds in her clear glass fragments, fitting them to what she painted. \u201cSometimes you start with a certain image in mind, but as you go along, it becomes something entirely different.\u201d If she thinks it\u2019s not working she\u2019ll take off the fragments and repaint, then add the glass again. Sometimes she looks at what she has started, sees something else in it, and makes an entirely different piece. \u201cYou know, how when you begin a painting suddenly one painting becomes ten paintings.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/a>Valerie Hollstein\u00a0 did \u201c\u2026 lots of crafty things\u2026\u201d with her best friend in her youth. As an adult she created images with\u00a0 glass to put in the children\u2019s rooms \u201c\u2026. animals and such. After that I just dropped it all. Then when they were raised I had sort of a mid-life crisis \u2026. who am I, what is my purpose, you know, the usual stuff \u2026 so I went back to school and combined anthropology and fine art.\u201d\u00a0 University of Utah\u2019s John Erickson was her main teacher and she regards him as a great and patient man who gave her\u00a0 drawing and painting skills. \u201cI learned drawing and painting, but when I finished, I went right\u00a0 back to glass.\u201d<\/p>\n