Why Recycled Glass?
When Jodi first started out to be a glass artist, she spent all her money on a kiln and so couldn’t afford to buy art glass. Instead she reused bottles, windows, etc. She looked for information about recycled glass art, including online, and found nothing.
So she started figuring things out on her own. What she decided was “It’s time for the hoarding of information to stop.” She’d rather that people spend time finding their own creative insight than trying to figure out Jodi’s firing schedules for recycled glass, so she gives them the latter so they’re free to explore the former. Because she has spent so much time testing different firing schedules and techniques, others can spend less time testing and more time creating.
She thinks that fusible art glass has been both really good and really bad for the glass world. It’s opened up these huge horizons for anyone to try to make glass art, which is wonderful, but the downside is that it’s so predictable, i.e., fusible glass results are relatively consistent. People have lost the idea that things won’t necessarily always work on the first try. For example, when kids create glass art using both fusible and recycled glass, they have a good experience with both techniques. Adults, however, tend to find recycled glass results so wide-ranging and disappointing, just because it is less predictable. Any art form that you get absolutely right the very first time isn’t necessarily art—you need to work at it and spend time at it.
She now gets comments daily from people all over the world thanking her for sharing the information that she does. It’s interesting to see how many questions she gets that she already knows the answer to, but hadn’t thought of the question yet.
She’s working on a series of artist tutorials on using recycled glass. She’s outsourced mold-making and will have slip-cast molds designed especially for use with recycled glass, including bottles.
‘There are a lot more people like me out there and the Internet has made it so much easier for all of us to share information.” She’s connecting with many of these people with specialized interests and talents.
Jodi has been invited to participate in Art & Soup this year and will be showing all sculptural pieces in a new technique that she is perfecting.
 When Mary Young isn’t working on glass, she’s making the worlds most delicious chocolates! Mary also serves as the Glass Art Guild Secretary. |