Karen Wallace

"There is no such thing as too much color."

Karen Wallace loves color. This seems at odds with her medium of glass: a clear, transparent barrier between us and the outside, the heat, the cold, the rain, the dust; preferably so colorless and flawless that it disappears. But glass can also be vibrant and full of energy, and there is transformative magic in turning cold, sterile sheets of raw material into the complex motifs Karen favors.

Whether it's a modern-day take on the traditional murrine construction of sixteenth-century Murano, Italy, or carefully-engineered flowing and mingling, Karen enjoys creating special glass components and then designing her work around them. Elements of a finished piece have frequently undergone several firings on their way to the final artwork.

A computer nerd by vocation, Karen's glass journey began with stained glass. Feeling constrained by flat panes, she took a fusing class and got hooked on warm glass. Living near one of the country's preeminent glass teaching studios, she had the great fortune of learning from a variety of domestic and international visiting instructors as well the award-winning artist owners.