Water lilies & Dogwoods

In Japan, cherry blossoms represent new beginnings. People celebrate the New Year with parties thrown under their beautiful pink blooms. When I first began sculpting flowers in glass, I was mostly interested in color and form, not really trying to represent any specific flower. But after taking a course with Karen Willenbrink-Johnsen, who encouraged me to make “make it real,” I decided that cherry blossoms would be a good place to start. Since then, I have begun to explore the forms of other flowers that have personal meaning for me. I remember being fascinated by water lilies when I visited a Japanese garden as a child with my grandmother and her friend, and now that I live in Indiana, spring is marked by the bloom of Dogwood trees.