Early Slumped Glass Works
This layered red and white bead brooch is a compact, sculptural composition that balances intensity with clarity. Encased within softly slumped transparent glass, clusters of vivid red glass beads dominate the surface, their saturated colour creating a strong visual rhythm and a sense of density and warmth. Interspersed among them, white beads punctuate the field, offering moments of pause and contrast within the composition.
The beads appear partially embedded and partially revealed, their circular forms magnified and distorted by the glass as if viewed through water. Small accents of yellow and black emerge at the edges and beneath the surface, adding depth and complexity and preventing the palette from feeling closed or uniform. The layering of materials creates subtle thickness variations, with light refracting unevenly across the surface and activating the brooch as it moves.
The overall form is slightly irregular and asymmetrical, reinforcing the sense of a fragment rather than a rigid object. While the piece draws on the familiar language of beadwork, the slumping and fusion process transforms it into a contemporary artefact, one that speaks of accumulation, compression, and transformation, in which colour and material are held in a delicate yet deliberate tension.