a fused glass maker
“Its colour, its reflections and translucent quality instantly captured my heart. To me it has a similar quality to water”
I’m glad that Dreya was able to explain to me what “fused glass” was and the process behind it. I’d never seen it before but I wished I had when I looked at her work. Really lovely creative stuff. So, Fused glass, this is a process of placing layers of shaped glass together and firing them in a kiln until they fuse together. It’s a process that can take hours and sometimes can take days depending on the volume of the glass that needs firing.
Dreya discovered glass by accident whilst she was at Falmouth Art College. It was a medium she fell in love with straight away and it was then she decided to specialise and train in Architectural stained glass at Swansea. A little later on she started playing around with fused glass as it gave her a real freedom to experiment with different design techniques. When you look at Dreya’s designs there is a very distinctive theme running through her work, the sea. It clearly has a huge influence on her designs judging by the colour pallet she uses and works from. Very reflective of the colour of the sea and its translucent qualities. Dreya also works on one off commissioned pieces from large architectural items to intensely personal small pieces.
I watched as Dreya carved shapes out of glass then sprinkled coloured bubble powder over the glass then placed another layer of glass on top sandwiching it all together. It was then placed in the kiln and fired at a high temperature where the glass and coloured bubble power fuses together. No two finished articles are alike which follows that theme of no two waves are alike. I guess the beauty of that to a customer is that you have a one off that no one else has - a very unique item.
Dreya prefers to work from home in her own purpose built unit, a space she often shares with her dog “ Guss “ by her side. There’s that theme again - dogs….
Thanks Dreya
