Now, about 25 years after taking that first class, Nesci has focused her artistry on goblets and bird figurines.
“I saw some goblets that were made by an artist in Prescott — Bandhu Dunham,” Nesci says. “I got his book and he just showed these interesting goblets. Sometimes they were silly, like a saguaro for the stem. And I wanted to make them.
“What I found was that they’re challenging for me to make and that means I never ever run out of interesting challenges and problems to try and solve and try and get better at.”
“I’m grateful that I can spend my time making my glass art,” artist Katherine Nesci says. “It’s a never-ending source of fascination.”
As for the glass birds, which are intended to be small decorations, Nesci says she tries to make them fun with interesting swirls and designs.
Here’s how it works: Nesci first observes birds, examines their shape and draws it out.
She then heats Pyrex tubes and rods with a propane and oxygen torch and covers them with her color of choice.
“Then I go in with really long, pointy bits of glass and I melt on the design — like drawing or painting,” she says.
“All the color is added with the melting,” she says.
She then heats up different parts of the bird to essentially “puff” it into its shape.
“It’s a little like if you take a bunch of Crayola crayons and you grate them up with a cheese grater and put it on a plate,” Nesci explains. “And then you took, maybe, a warm bottle and rolled that bottle over the crayon flakes, they’d melt onto the bottle. And when you picked it up, it would be covered in those melted crayons.”
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