Nina Casson McGarva

The starting point in my work is nature. I take a detail of an element I find in nature and use it as a inspirational base to create my own abstraction, that then builds into a complex sculpture.

My inspiration comes from cycles of nature that I associate with glass making process because to me the material is at it's most alive when it’s hot and being transformed. The end result is solid and doesn’t move any longer, it is at the fragile time before disintegration and maintains a dynamic form and rich structures such as dry leaves, feathers or sea shells. In the making process I shape it hot in an open kiln until the glass stops moving. When the glass transforms to be a solid, the piece is finished.