Alison ter Haar

Becoming a glass artist. How did I get here? About 10 years ago I was admiring a friend’s glass creations and discovered that there was a local community ‘glass class’ I could join. I was off ….. learning to work with glass has been a wonderful and exciting voyage. Once I started, I was hooked. As I developed my skills, I became more interested in exploring how creative I could be using a variety of different glass types, names such as: confetti, murrini, firestix, stringers, dichroic, vitrigraph stringers, millefiori, twisted cane, and ribbons, to name but a few, conjure up a rich landscape of possibilities.

You never stop learning as there are always new techniques being developed. My favourite way of working with glass is to fusing: using different layers and heating them in a kiln where the glass melts together. I started off with the traditional stained-glass work, using lead came and transparent glass, which allows you to create a great wealth of designs and to use the colours of the glass to their best advantage, without having a kiln. Lead work is always best seen with the light flooding through. Copper foil work is another technique where your pieces of glass have the edges foiled and then soldered with lead. It gives a slightly more delicate look to the finished article.

I am fortunate enough to have a small studio at home and also a small kiln which allows me to fire my own pieces, However, I love to carry on attending classes to keep in touch with fellow glass artists and to learn new skills from our great tutor. Working with glass is demanding, but also very satisfying and I find that I can completely lose myself for hours when working on an intricate piece. 

If you would like to get in touch my email is [email protected] and my phone number is 07950106943