James Vollmer

Having been a glass fuser for seventeen years, we have found that it's not always what you plan to create, but the studied mistakes that can lead to beautiful results. Such was our first glass "fabric", "Shimmy". Since then, our work has centered on the use of glass stringers not as decoration, but as the basic design element leading us to our current work. Clear stringer, not colored, is the main ingredient to most our "fabrics". Color is important, yet it is the optical qualities of the clear stringer that create the special effects of line warping, color blending and surface texture. These "special effects" work in combination to achieve the different "fabrics". The clear stringer in the "shimmy" creates the disappearance and reappearance of color, line warping and cross weaving to give the fabric effect. In the new "Translucent Wool" it demonstrates the nubby texture of wool. In our newest "Tapestry Fabric", it creates the intricacies of tapestry. Color catches the eye, but it is the understanding of optics of clear stringer, that keeps the eye.