Bio Gabriele Baumann is a German-born fused glass artist from Burlington, Vermont. She was a manager of a travel agency in Germany before she moved to Toronto with her husband, and later to Burlington where they now reside with their four children. She opened a home-based baking business for a few years, also catering to two cafes. After winning a fused glass workshop with the Davis Studio here in Burlington through a raffle at the annual Art Hop, she became fascinated with glass. She has always enjoyed contemporary design and finds glass to be a perfect medium to express her ideas and to utilize her skills of precision and attention to detail. Gabriele's work is influenced by her European heritage and everything she sees around her in nature, textiles and photography. About Fused Glassby Gabriele Baumann Glass fusing is fascinating to me. Not only do I have an amazing variety of colors to choose from, but I can also transform glass into something new through the application of heat and the use of tools. Fused glass has become a passion of mine within the past five years. The process of fusing glass forces you to plan ahead and be very deliberate about the arrangements. Unlike a painting, that can evolve and be corrected with each brush stroke, glass once set in its arrangement and placed into the kiln for firing, will settle as prepared. My work is well planned and I take pride in the execution, starting with finding a pattern and matching the colors. After firing (temperatures can vary) kiln glass requires a lot of secondary work or “cold working” that ranges from cutting, grinding, sanding and polishing to sometimes sandblasting – the quality of a piece isn’t only reflected in its initial design, but also in the execution and handcraft that follows. After all that, a second or third firing is necessary where the prepared piece gets slumped into a mold to give it the desired shape. I am inspired by geometric patterns that can be found in nature and architecture as well as by contemporary designs and re-occurring themes of colors. Once you start looking, it is amazing how many patterns surround us. I am also fascinated by water and ice and its different formations. You can find elements of this in many of my pieces.