What do you love most about your profession?
It is a bit of a cliché, but I like that everyday is different. I teach at university, I teach workshops, I make work, I have admin days, I visit exhibitions and present at conferences. There are times when it feels like I am spinning plates. But it is always interesting.
How do you achieve the vibrant colours in your work?
Using glass as a means of chromatic expression is not easy. Glass artists do not have the widest choice of colours. Much of my practice revolves around mixing and combining commercially available glass colours to obtain a palette of hues and tones unique to me.
©Joshua Kerley
So do you mix glass colours as though they were paint?
Glass colours are fickle things, made by heating a variety of raw ingredients to melting point. The colour is the result of a chemical reaction. So some colours react with one another leaving greys and browns. It is not as simple as mixing paint on a palette.
What is your favourite moment in working with glass?
Nothing beats the feeling of getting a new piece of glass out of the kiln, and it is everything you had imagined it would be, and more. The satisfaction of something you envisioned, designed, problem-solved, and crafted taking material form is immense.