Fused glass adornments for body and soul
My name is Melissa Antul and I love to create.
I don’t recall a time in my life when I wasn’t creating. My mother was an oil painter and ceramic artist. Growing up, we were always making something new and different, often for school and church bazaars. This has continued throughout my life, and I feel a drive to share my joy in creating with others. I have always worked with children and as an adult, I brought this creative instinct into both my life and work. Over the years, I have used art and craft as a means to engage children to help them learn about and feel good about themselves and as a way to help them engage effectively with others. This eventually resulted in my becoming a school psychologist where I spent years running therapeutic groups in public schools using arts and crafts as a focal activity.
I happened upon glass as a medium when sharing a class alongside my then adolescent daughter at the Currier Art School in Manchester, NH. The first of many classes that I took was run by Judith Copeland, League of NH juried glass artist, and as they say, “the rest is history”.
As a now retired psychologist, I find working with glass to be much like working with people. I am a guide to help transform the glass into something beautiful and unique that I imagine, but the glass has the final say in what it becomes. I am inspired by the innate beauty in the world around me and glass is my partner in helping portray my vision. Being a resident of NH for the majority of my life, I find no end to the seasonal beauty and variety around me, from the white birches and purple lupines of spring mountains, to the intense blaze of fall color or the clear glowing night sky. Since I am also a child of the 60’s, I often incorporate a little psychedelic fun by adding glow-in-the-dark frit/powdered glass to my designs.
All of my fused glass is created in my home studio now in Sanbornton, New Hampshire where I have views of the mountains and Lake Winnisquam-talk about inspiration! Each piece of glass is hand cut and/or ground to shape and layered into one of my kilns where it is fired to @ 1200-1500 degrees at least once and often many more times to achieve the desired results. Each firing takes a day or more to insure proper annealing. I love the depth and texture found in nature and so often use a variety items such as silver tissue, metal shapes, colored frit, fusible paper, fusible paints or wire swirls fused within or on the glass.
No matter what techniques are used, each piece of glass from Melissa Antul/Glass Transformations is a one-of-a-kind signed work of art and love, created to share my joy with others.
