Janet Hiebert Glass Artist Oakland, California e-mail: jh@hieberts.com Home Contact About Janet Glass Art Links   Report problems to: webmaster@hieberts.com

Artist's Statement   The luminescence of light and color that is inherent in glass art has become a point of departure for my work in kiln-fired glass. My studies at California College of Arts and Crafts, and later at California State University Hayward, focused on drawing, painting and ceramics. The color and intensity of glass enticed me first to design and fabricate stained glass, and eventually to experiment with fused and kiln cast glass. I teach Stained Glass and Glass Fusing and Slumping classes and I continuously learn from the people who take my classes. I feel it is a mutual process involving both teacher and student to create the synergy that develops in the artistic learning environments at The Crucible, Studio One Art Center and the Stained Glass Garden. Kiln firing alters the glass from a “solid” state to a viscous fluid and back again to a “solid“ state. The heat transforms the individual layers into a cohesive form. More definition and dimension is added by slumping the fused glass into a mold. The kiln firing is always a challenge; the metamorphosis of the material is an integral part of the art process. I like working with glass because it is fragile, yet simultaneously, enduring. Glass is a challenging medium that allows me to use ancient techniques to express contemporary design ideas. Although my own artistic experience has also gone through many changes, the fundamentals of past disciplines are essential to my current endeavors.