Sandy Levin has been creating fused glass since about 2005 as a way to combat the stress in her life. Over the years, she has expanded to casted glass and other cold working techniques such as grinding, polishing and sandblasting. Before that Sandy was doing some stained glass, but wanted to move away from working with lead. She gets inspiration from all aspects of her life. Sandy’s daughter is a molecular biologist, so thinking about microscopic objects and objects of nature ignites interests. Representing those ideas in glass can sometimes be challenging.
The double helix “Down the Rabbit Hole” started out as an idea to create a DNA sequence. Sandy created a different sculpture of 1/2” casted pieces and had it all put together. While moving the piece a little too much when photographing it and the glue was still drying, her creation crashed onto the cement floor. Thinking she shouldn’t be doing a DNA sequence, Sandy let the idea settle and her husband encouraged her not to give up. After attending an adhesive workshop with artist Tom Marosz she gave it another try. It took several weeks to come up with a final design, cut and sand down the edges of lots of strips of glass, and test how they can balance. The key was to use glass she already had in stock. Using UV glue, Sandy stacked the glass strips in a double helix design. The trick is to have a steady hand as you hold the strips with one hand and the UV light with the other.
Sandy loves experimenting with glass and seeing the results. She states “Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t, but that’s the fun of it all. Each day I open my kiln it’s like opening a Christmas present”.
Lately, Sandy is doing more experimenting with different techniques, she just came back from Las Vegas where she took a class from Mike Dupille. Watch for some palette knife paintings in Studio 25. Right now she has one piece called Bananas for sale.
