Elizabeth Ryland Mears is a full time, award winning studio artist. She creates works in glass and mixed media using primarily the glassblowing technique of flamework.
After a successful career in flat glass and teaching those techniques in such places as the Smithsonian Institution and the Building Museum in Washington DC, Mears began flameworking in the early 1990’s. She intensively studied that glass technique at Penland School of Crafts, Pilchuck Glass School and The Studio of The Corning Museum of Glass. She was a scholarship student at the latter two and has now taught at many of the venues where she was a student, as well as, others. Her book, FLAMEWORKING: Creating Glass Beads, Sculptures & Functional Objects, was published in April 2003.
The sculpture created by Mears combines glass with mixed media in wall and pedestal pieces. Her total body of work includes several different series. Whether representational or conceptual, her creations reflect her relationships to her inner and her outer worlds and use nature as the theme to express those relationships.
Mears’ creations are represented by galleries throughout the nation and are included in numerous private, corporate, and museum collections.
Website
http://www.elizabethmears.com
