Editorial
Front Page - Friday, January 15, 2010
Glass artist carves a unique niche in Chattanooga
David Laprad
People usually look through glass, not at it. But artist Serena Asbra does things to glass that make people stop thinking about what’s on the other side.
Her tools are not the graceful implements of a painter or a sculptor. Rather than a brush or a palette, she uses an air compressor and a pressure sandblaster. And yet her creations have a style and a grace that belie her methods.
“I’ve painted murals, done a lot of pastels and charcoals, but when my husband and I got together, he was in glass, so I taught myself to carve and etch,” she says.
Asbra has carved and etched a lot of egrets, herons and palm trees, mainly because she lived in Florida for several years. While looking through her portfolio, clients can also marvel at a photo of a shower door on which a wave crashes gracefully against a rocky reef or wonder how she made the dolphins she carved into a room divider look so lifelike. The patrons at a country club in Naples are currently enjoying an etching Asbra did of two palm trees on a 14-foot mirror hung behind the bar.
If it’s glass, it’s a canvas for Asbra. One of her more eye-opening pieces consists of calla lilies carved in a circle onto both a clear glass table and the sides of a glass bowl that sits on the table’s surface. Another client commissioned Asbra to etch a glass staircase sporting abstract modern shapes.
“I do work for architects, builders and home interior decorators,” she says. “I do a lot of front doors, showers, room dividers and wall mirrors, so window and door companies are huge for me. Not that I don’t do other things. I’ve done family portraits and logos for businesses.”
To hear Asbra talk about the process of creating a piece is to be surprised that the end result is even possible.
“Etching is more of a surface mist, where I get shadows by doing lights and darks, because you can’t go deep in tempered glass unless it’s thick,” she says. “I get the depth in a carving from actually cutting into the glass. That’s usually done with a sandblaster.”
Sandblasting takes the surface off the glass using a big air compressor and a siphon gun. It’s like painting, Asbra says, only it chips away the glass.
“I use different grades of sand depending on how deep I need to go, because the coarser the sand, the more it’s going to eat at the glass,” Asbra says. Different degrees of pressure also provide different effects.
In addition to regular etching and carving, Asbra offers a reverse etch, which leaves the design a little more clear than the surrounding glass.
“A reverse etch would work well on a front door because it’d give you more privacy than a regular etch,” Asbra says. “Instead of taking a piece of glass and etching a palm tree, for example, I’d sketch everything around the tree to obscure the glass that would usually be clear and then do the etching on the tree.”
Asbra can also add color to any design.
When asked how she developed her skills, Asbra says she was born with them. “I never went to college to learn to draw. I remember being 5 years old, and my big thing for Christmas was crayons, pencils and pads of paper,” she says. “I took art class in junior and senior high, because I was drawn to it, but I thought it was something everybody could do. As I got older, I realized it was a gift.”
Asbra grew up near Toledo, Ohio and eventually made her way to Florida. Now that she and her husband have moved to Tennessee, and settled into a cozy log cabin-style residence in Harrison, she’s hoping to expand her repertoire. Given the interest locally in the outdoors and hunting, for example, she believes wildlife and mountain scenes might prove popular.
Although Asbra works out of her home, when a client commissions a piece, she prefers to go to his office or home so she can pick up on his décor, see where he’s going to place the piece and get a sense of what the finished product will look like in its environment.
One thing Asbra wants to make clear is that it’s never too late to spruce up something with a nice carving or etching. “A lot of people tell me they would’ve loved to have had me do this, but they’ve already installed their shower,” says Asbra. “That’s not a problem. Showers are easy to take out.”
To contact Asbra or view photos of her work, visit www.asbraartistic.com.
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