Garrelts Glass

Scott Garrelts Glass is filled with spiraling and twisting patterns, seascape images and bursts of intense color. His collection of art glass bowls, vases, paperweights and sculpture incorporates the use of a classic glass technique - cane working. 

At Gerralts Glass, cane working, a thousand year old craft, involves creating thin rods of glass which are then used in patterns, sometimes weaving them in and out of each other as they flow through the glass. You will recognize these as twist and spiral designs in Scott's work.

Also featured prominently in Gerralts Glass is the uses of murrini. These are also glass canes but typically thicker and cut into cross sections. Murrini, in Italian, means colored patterns or images in glass. It's like a glass mosaic, fusing together many layers of glass.  Flower-like images created from murrini are called "millefiori"- thousand flowers. Scot's seascape glass glass art abound with many colorful murrini depicting under water plant life.

I started working with glass in 2006. I enjoy making many different forms from glass, including bowls, vases, and other vessels as well as imaginative and some more realistic sculptures.

A thousand year old technique, known as caneworking, is one of my favorite styles to work in. It involves creating, and then arranging thin rods of colored glass. Sometimes in patterns, and many times weaving in and out of each other while flowing through the piece of glass. There are millions of different ways to use cane. Going hand in hand with cane is murrine, which is pulled similar to cane but typically left thicker in diameter and then cut into cross sections.

Through the use of brilliant, highly saturated color and smooth, sensuous shapes, Garrelts Glass offers contemporary beauty grounded with classic technique.

"I make all my clear glass from scratch. I also try to use intense amounts and variations in color. Many colors I make from raw materials. The main ingredient is sand, followed by soda ash and lime. By creating my own colors I’m able to come up with some colors that may not be available to the rest of the glass world.

When I’m shaping the glass, it is intense. Everything has to happen at just the right time, like a well choreographed dance. There is no stopping to go freshen up my coffee. Once I start a piece at 2000 degrees, it has to stay above 1000 degrees the entire time I work it or It will crack. It can be a fine line to walk. Too much heat or too little at the wrong time can mean failure.

With my glass I hope to simply bring pleasure and enhance ones surroundings, though many pieces are functional as well."