Lea Ella Erickson

Artist Statement:

I love color. As a child, my greatest joy was a new box of crayons.  If given money as a gift, I’d go to the “Five and Dime” store and buy the biggest box they had (48 in those days).  As soon as I got home, I’d sit on the floor and arrange the colors along the color spectrum choosing my favorites (periwinkle and sea foam).  The boring blacks, whites, grays and browns were often relegated to a spot under a chair where my mother must have found them when she vacuumed.

Although my father did stained-glass and I had dabbled with it, that was not my entrée to fused glass.  Making complex polymer clay beads led to making jewelry, which led to buying glass and metal beads, which subsequently led to the discovery of torchworked beads.  My friend Dinah Ihle (a founding member of the Guild) and I took our first beadmaking class, and a new passion was born.  Adding fused glass to torchwork was a natural transition—or, more accurately, a complementary development. When I integrated torchworked elements into fused pieces, I discovered new horizons of creative design.

My big box of crayons became a room full of glass still sorted along the color spectrum.  The coloring book was replaced by torches and kilns.  Glass is rich with creative opportunities both reflecting and transmitting color, and it can be layered to create art in three dimensions.  As a child, I always colored within the lines, and, as a glass artist, I am drawn to complex designs requiring precision. I always push the limits of my technical skills to new levels of creativity, and my love of color grows with each design and every fabrication.