Amber Cowan Puts Recycled Pressed Glass Under a Cloche

Amber Cowan works from recycled pressed glass, the cheap moulded ware that filled American homes through much of the twentieth century: candy dishes, footed bowls, small figurines. She reheats those objects at the torch, reshapes them, and places the assembled scenes inside glass cloches, so the dome that once protected a clock or a plant becomes both frame and vitrine.

Flameworking gives fine control at small scale and punishes every misjudged move with a crack. Sourcing the raw material from found objects adds a second constraint: the supply is finite and cannot be reordered. When a particular shade of pressed glass runs out, that colour is gone from the work. What makes the result more than salvage is the stance behind it. Recycling here is not an ecological obligation but a material choice, and the difference matters. In one case waste is rescued; in the other it is preferred.