Mitzi Kugler
Artist Statement
As I design a piece, I try to imagine it finished: How will my art piece interact in its environment and how will it elicit a response from the person viewing it?
In my work I use a combination of glass techniques. First, I layer an array of glass pieces, over a number of firings, to produce my backgrounds. Afterwards, I use rods of glass and a torch called lampworking, to create intricate glass components along with other elaborate fused glass elements for each piece. At the end, I combined all of those design features and lightly fuse them into the glass surface to give my work even more textures and a 3D effect that is not usually associated with fused glass work. This is a self-taught technique that I have developed since 2006. The result is a complex art form that plays with viewers’ eyes to draw them into my work and to look more deeply. To display my work, I have fabricated custom frames out of metal, upcycled metal or wood since 2009 to entirely produce unique and one of a kind pieces of artwork.