Hello and welcome. I’m Helen; the designer, maker, admin, IT manager, chief cook and bottle washer behind Deep Waters Glass. This is me and Mischief; my raison d’etre, chief supporter and giver of best hugs.

I have always been fascinated by glass and all the many forms it can take. I’ve read about it, watched it being blown, pulled and manipulated in the heat of the hot shop, seen tiny intricate beads and creations made at home with a gas torch and sought it out in its many guises. I’ve always wanted to work with glass myself and had my first real taste when attending a glass fusing workshop with my daughter, Mischief. 

I attended more workshops learning the basics, had many chats with the workshop instructor and we quickly became firm friends. After my husband died and I needed a new direction and a means of supporting myself and Mischief she encouraged me to get my first kiln, Bertha.

What I didn’t expect was the therapeutic nature of working with glass. By its very nature and need for care, it’s very sharp after all, it demands a calm and patient mind. Like so many I have found it incredibly healing to work my grief into my art and you will see many pieces dedicated to my husband. 

Another great source of balm to my soul is the ocean and you will see I also draw a lot of inspiration from it; it’s colours, it’s depths, it’s movement and it’s life. Many of my pieces feature the greens and blues of the ocean’s palette and glass really lends itself to this expression. 

Glass, you see, is fascinating. You can make it by melting a handful of beach sand, not that I’d recommend you trying it as it needs to reach 1700C to melt. Sand! It’s gritty and opaque and when you really look closely made from many many colours. Yet when it melts it undergoes an almost magical transformation. It doesn’t cool back to that multicoloured grit or even an opaque solid sheet of many colours.  No, it hardens clear. 

Yet when it hardens it’s not really a solid anymore. It’s sort of a semi frozen liquid. Don’t believe me? Next time you find yourself in a building with some really old glass take a close look, a church window is great. The little panes are slightly thicker at the bottom than the top. This is because glass doesn’t have the crystalline structure of a solid but has some of the more random structure of a liquid. 

You can use these features of glass and it’s behaviour when heated to different temperatures for different times to create so many different finishes. Softly smooth all over, gently softened and melted to retain its shape and texture but lose its sharp edges, softened just enough to take the edge off but keep all its layers and textures, heated even less to just begin to bend and slump into and over moulds, the list goes on… And we use it for so many applications; to protect us, to store things, make useful tools, see through, drink from and decorate our homes. 

Glass can capture the depths of the ocean and the heat of the fire in its beauty. It can look like ice, frozen and deadly or like flames, warming but lethal. 

I can gaze for hours into rippling water and crashing sea, but I can’t mold it, shape it, tame it or frame it. I’m not saying I can do those things with glass, but I can try. In the pages of my shop you will see pieces you can have in your home. Some functional, some decorative but hopefully all with some beauty.