Many of the finer points of the art were virtually lost in the rush to embrace modern industrial glass techniques. However, the last 25 years have seen a period of rediscovery, thanks to a resurgence of home-based artists who, for all practical purposes, have reinvented the craft. And among the new wave of glass work, Pati Walton's highly representational pieces stand out.

What follows is a brief description of her unusual technique, as she crafts one of her captivating aquarium beads in her home workshop in Denver. The foundation of her work is using multiple layers of glass to give an illusion of great depth. With her method she can layer glass of different colors and transparencies, and "paint" scenery in between them with very fine stringers of glass. The effect gives a startling illusion of background, foreground, and middle ground, as if you could dive into the beads and swim around.

"The white dichroic core will be the ocean floor," says Pati, as she wraps on a one-inch square plate of the iridescent glass, and smoothes it flat with a graphite marver, or paddle. "You need to be careful not to burn it or it will get a scummy coating on it. After that I'll paint on the background seaweed with stringers made earlier. Altogether, there will be four layers of glass with scenes painted on in between."

She adds a coat using an almost clear turquoise rod that she kept warm under her left arm, laying it on in thick diagonal strips the way you would wrap an ace bandage around your forearm. She works quickly and efficiently, with a rhythm that never varies. As each layer and design element is added, momentum and intensity build. "I'm trying to get it to look like waves. It's a little tedious. You put it on, melt it in, put it on, melt it in. It's really hard not to get bubbles with the clear coat, but it's okay with an aquarium bead because there are bubbles underwater."

Painting in a starfish with coral and yellow stringers - very long, thin threads of glass which she makes beforehand by stretching out molten glass almost to the breaking point - she pauses briefly to see if it is just right. Next she rolls the whole molten bead across three little millefiori beads with flowerlike cross sections used in paperweights. The beads stick to the glass and are pushed in like chocolate chips in a hot marshmallow. Another clear coat goes on to add depth and magnification. The millefiori come out looking like sea urchins. "It takes quite a long time to make these aquariums," Pati says. "One fish alone has three colors. I start with dots of color and draw them out into a fish shape, then I add a bubble coming out of its mouth." "You're working against time," she adds, wrapping on a thick clear casing to finish the bead. "You have to do one half of the bead without letting the other halt cool too much. The trick is knowing how cool or hot you can let the core get before it's too cool or too hot." - AO.

Reproduced with permission