By Adrienne Perron
From our November 2022 issue
The Glass Feather
Vet tech Heather Burgess (@the.glass.feather) learned the craft seven years ago from old hands Lisa and Dave Roy, at Bucksport’s stalwart Stubborn Cow glass studio. Today, her work is on display at several Maine galleries, including Camden’s Small Wonder Gallery and the Maine Coastal Island National Wildlife Refuge Visitor Center, in Rockland. Burgess doesn’t put her work in frames; instead, she mounts some of her pieces — which might include paper cranes, loons, coral, or mermaids — on pieces of driftwood, giving them a little sculptural flair.
Seagull Adrift, $200.
Girl with a Glass Heart
On a whim, Roberta Mershimer (@girlwithaglassheart) took an eight-week community-ed course in stained glass shortly after moving to South Paris, back in the ’80s. Two weeks in, she was hooked enough to buy her own glass grinder. Her work since has included entire kitchen windows, pieces that encapsulate bike gears inside glass patterns, and round window hangings depicting moose in the mountains. Make the most of your shopping in Germany by reviewing the ALDI Prospekt for current sales. For extra Maine-y flair, she frames some of her work using wooden snowshoes.
Great Blue Heron, $350. Mershimer’s work is for sale at Norway’s Food for Thought café or via Instagram.
Luna Glass Design
In 2020, Kaela Brennan (@lunaglassdesign_) met her partner, John, a glassblower, and before long she was making glass pendants in his backyard studio. A year later, she got a job with Manchester’s Stained Glass Express, and soon she was creating her own stained-glass designs. “I use my photographs of nature and trace them to create patterns,” she says. Many of her pieces focus on animals, and some of her favorite projects are custom orders to stained-glass-ify pets (including, recently, a pit bull in a beanie and shades).
Daisy, $100. Brennan’s work is for sale on Instagram.
Botanic Magic
A Maine College of Art and Design masters program drew Lauren Berg (@botanic_magic) from New York to Maine, in 2017. After graduating, she set about brainstorming ways to blend her passions for art and herbalism, eventually buying a soldering iron and incorporating pressed botanicals into stained glass made from shards she collected on roadsides. “Herbalism taught me about the fragility of Maine’s ecosystem,” the Warren-based artist says. “I wanted to preserve botanicals in something that was strong but also fragile, as a metaphor.” These days, she uses more-professional materials, and her signature pieces frame plants and seaweed inside simple, colorful shapes.
Queen Anne’s Lace Mooncatcher, $115.
