Woodland Designs

We are very excited to introduce our newest series of glass and wood kaleidoscope sculptures.   We chose to use this presentation because it provides a “canvas” to showcase our fused glass artwork in a format which not only displays our visually stunning art pieces, but more importantly, they are beautiful kaleidoscopes.  It is the culmination of Steve’s 39-years of working with glass and wood, and Peggy’s 36-years of working with glass and the torch, and their 27 years working together creating unique, signature kaleidoscopes. 

To create the dimensionally fused exterior, all of the elements are either individually hand cut or flame sculpted with the torch.  Each flower is carefully put together and then tack-fused in the kiln at 1400 degrees.  After annealing and cooling, we carefully place all the components on the base glass and Steve fuses and forms the whole piece, which again, must be carefully annealed and then cooled.

Steve does all of the wood-working for the black walnut display which incorporates a place to store a second object cell (the cells are interchanged with the use of magnets), and it also has a piece to support the body while viewing as a kaleidoscope.  He hand cuts and puts together the mirrors which create the symmetry, using only the finest optic-quality front surface mirror.

Even though each piece is, in reality, a one-of-a-kind piece, we are calling this a “Limited Edition” of 7 pieces.  The composition of each kaleidoscope will be the same but with slight variations in the placement of the leaves, stems, and flowers, and like all of our kaleidoscopes, the object cells will follow a color theme and be composed of Peggy’s flame-sculpted one-of-a-kind pieces.  One of the cells will contain miniature glass flowers or pieces mimicking the exterior, and the other will be filled with pieces creating beautiful contrasting images, each containing just the right balance of dichroic glass to create a stunning harmony for the viewer.  Both cells are filled with silicon oil which provides undulating images which are both stimulating and peaceful.