From the Hands and Brains of Jenine Bressner

Teaching in NYC this summer

2022-06-07T23:13:00.008-04:00

I'll be teaching glass lampwork at UrbanGlass in Brooklyn this August!

https://urbanglass.org/classes/detail/exceeding-expectations-pushing-soft-glass-further

2019-04-06T20:51:00.002-04:00

I'll be teaching glass at Snow Farm in Western Massachusetts August 1 -4.
COME PLAY!
https://snowfarm.org/workshops/topics/flameworking-create-glass-more

2019-04-06T18:51:00.002-04:00

I'm still sculpting glass with torches, and still making huge necklaces.
Here are four and a detail image.

2017-06-20T19:43:00.001-04:00

Cultural appropriation and lack of originality aside,
this is the most beautiful clothing ad I've ever seen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3m-feTXo4E

Arthur Szyk

2017-03-09T23:12:00.000-05:00

As a kid, I always saw these Polish circus posters
in doctors' offices.

I would stare at the text, not understanding
that Polish word with certainty.

I thought the word for "circus" was the

name of the poster artist, not realizing there
were various artists.

By Arthur Szyk (1894-1951) - The Arthur Szyk Society, Burlingame, CA 94070 www.szyk.org
CC BY-SA 4.0,
The grandeur of this print was emphasized with gilded accents!

When I was nine, I discovered the work of Arthur Szyk via an edition of Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales. I pored over these images and tried to understand how someone could accomplish such feats. How could I focus love to come out of MY hands and onto paper?

I couldn't remember Arthur Szyk's last name because it was not a word or arrangement of letters that I was used to understanding.
Tonight, after years of intermittent attempts to rediscover him (and accidentally searching for variations on the words "Cyrk" or "Czyk") I succeeded after searching for illustrated Andersen editions on abebooks! And I learned that Szyk was an activist!

Do Not Forgive Them, O Lord, For They Do Know What They Do (1949)

He made A LOT of anti- Nazi images, but I can't bring myself to post anything with a swastika on this blog (but here are some klan monsters?!) I'm so thankful to find these images, and so disheartened to find how timely they are.

2017-03-02T01:46:00.000-05:00

More pom pom earrings: handmade pom poms using yarns

from Peru, Japan, and the US; lampworked glass, lasercut

merino wool, and steel. These have gone to live in Barcelona.

Some new things on etsy

2017-01-20T02:35:00.004-05:00

I added some new things to my etsy shop,

including lampworked glass and lasercut wool

jewelry!

I joined instagram

2016-10-10T21:59:00.001-04:00

instagram.com/jbfireworks

2016-09-20T15:45:00.004-04:00

I made this huge, hollow glass bead a long time ago. The diameter is about 2.5 inches, and I made it on a hothead torch. I wrapped molten glass around a core of kiln- washed extra fine steel wool, decorated it with more glass, and after cooling I removed the steel threads from the interior with tweezers.

Yesterday I realized that I could get this thick felted cord through
the hole of the bead, and the color matched perfectly!

2016-09-15T15:46:00.000-04:00

I made these glass beads and then earrings at Haystack,
and the glass necklace was also made recently.

2016-09-06T13:20:00.000-04:00

Some new glass beads I made in the class I recently took

at Haystack with Kristina Logan!

Didymium lenses

2016-07-28T23:23:00.000-04:00

When flameworking, eyewear can protect one's vision by shielding from projectiles of thermally shocked glass. More uniquely, didymium lenses filter out the wavelength of light in the sodium flare of torched molten glass, thus altering the wearer's perception of certain colors. When people try my safety glasses on at demos, they usually think this is really cool.

I popped the plastic lenses out of my contemporary safety glasses and used a jeweler's saw to cut the lenses to fit these vintage frames. They're not totally finished yet, but it makes me really happy to customize my safety gear like this.

2016-07-10T21:25:00.000-04:00

2016-05-31T15:09:00.000-04:00

Some new work, and new pictures of some other pieces. I flameworked all of this glass.
Photos by Graham Wheeler, hand by Jess Richards

Geometry!

2016-03-21T23:37:00.001-04:00

2016-03-18T11:11:00.000-04:00

A variation on the bubblecloud collar posted

last month, this plays with those proportions

The tiniest seed beads in this are 24°, which

are the smallest seed beads ever made, and

a very rare example of using beads that I did

not make myself.

I always love playing with gradients of color and size.

2016-02-03T00:08:00.001-05:00

A new necklace of lampworked glass and 15° seed beads

Without hand gestures

2015-05-31T21:33:00.000-04:00

I made some signs to communicate with other people while we travel in cars. I might not actually use the hearing loss sign, but I can imagine holding the other one up with a smile.

We made something new!

2015-05-29T22:00:00.000-04:00

And this is why I blog less often.

2014-10-01T18:30:00.001-04:00

I'm really having fun making these flower- headed plant people toys!

Dream book title

2014-02-24T00:42:00.000-05:00

This afternoon, during a brief nap, I dreamt of a book called Wish You Were: A Cyborg's Guide to Existentialism. Does this exist, or did I actually dream it up?

Glass chains for Calvin Klein

2014-02-13T18:46:00.000-05:00

My brother finally persuaded me to start tweeting, as I made the glass chains that were worn as necklaces and belts in Calvin Klein Collection's FW2014 runway show today. The New York Times covers it here!

Also, I put a few glass chain necklaces in my etsy shop. They do match everything.

Collages

2013-12-17T07:11:00.000-05:00

A new seed catalog arrived, so collages were made from last year's!

A glass menorah!

2013-12-06T17:36:00.000-05:00

My first try at making a glass flower menorah

A weekend show

2013-10-09T10:05:00.000-04:00

Some glass rain and lasercut textile plant forms hang at the "Nature Contained" show this past weekend in Providence.