Member Spotlight—Lori Scharf

Lori Scharf at the OpeningLori just loves bling and dichroic (dichro) coated glass—she’s been having fun playing with dichro glass and she’s experimenting with using the different facets of dichro glass.

Colors have to pop out at her—with her clothes, with her life—it’s got to jump off the rack! Colors need to be bright and, particularly with glass, have different shapes.

Lori has recently consigned several of her large glass pieces to Concept Smart Artful Living (SAL), the new gallery in Salt Lake that has really been looking for glass art and artists. Lori feels that much of her art is a perfect fit with Concept because they’re contemporary with abstract designs and various exciting textures (that she gets with dichro) in their reclaimed wood, concrete, and metal designs—it’s a magical fit. She is very excited about collaborating with them, especially with their metal and concrete work. Lori is very honored to have been asked to be the Featured Artist for Concept SAL Gallery for the Gallery Stroll on May 17th.

She likes BIG, as big as she can construct in her kiln, the bigger the better. “Nothing exceeds like excess!” Size and bling are what she likes. She creates her glass work because it makes her happy, and if someone else likes it, that’s frosting on the cake!

She likes playing with new techniques and materials, figuring out how to make them work. What makes her work with glass special is that she has limited time (due to her real job) to play in her studio. It’s not routine, it’s still special. It’s her chance to spend time in her studio and be creative.

The type of job she has in her real life, there’s never completion: you hand it off to someone else, who hands it off to someone else (air traffic control and training), so to actually start and finish a project that she and others can enjoy is something that she needs in her life.

She likes to talk to people about the process, how one gets certain results and the different types of glass. It’s fun to share with others and watch the light turn on as people understand the process that goes into it.

What she gets out of creating glass art is partly self-satisfaction and gratification—she loves glass and glass art, so when she makes something that she likes to look at and enjoy, it’s very fulfilling.

Lori is an engineer, so she likes the challenge of the engineering and technical aspects of creating glass art, the different firing schedules, using a wet belt sander to make the edges perfect. She’s also a perfectionist—so her glass has to have no flaws before she puts it out there.

Lori enjoys being part of the Glass Art Guild and sharing techniques and even troubles with others. It’s nice to have people to call on for help and to get others’ expertise on overcoming problems. When she needs marble feet for a large glass bowl she knows who to ask to create them for her. There are always people who can provide mentoring and advice, e.g., on pricing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

marypic Member Spotlights are written by Mary Young.  When Mary isn’t working on glass, she’s making the worlds most delicious chocolates!  Mary also serves as the Glass Art Guild Secretary.