“Glass is more gentle, graceful and noble than any metal, and its use is more delightful, polite and slightly than any other material at this day known to the world.”
Antonio Neri - 1612

Civilizations have celebrated the versatility and functionality of glass since the 2nd century BC. The main ingredients are silica sand, soda ash and limestone, and of course heat. Glass is all around us, from the glass we use to drink from to the windshield in your car. And most elegantly, used to make fabulous fine art. Glass can be transparent or burst with color. Metals and minerals are mixed to create all of the wonderful colors in glass. For example, gold oxide is used to make ruby and pink, cobalt oxide is used to make the blues and copper oxide can create red or green glass, just to mention a few.

Barbara Thomas Yerace first stepped into a hot glass studio at Carnegie-Mellon University in 1980 and knew immediately that she wanted to work with glass as her artistic medium. She’s been dreaming and thinking about its possibilities ever since. She has studied glassblowing and lamp working techniques with outstanding instructors and artists over the years. These experiences allowed her to see and learn about what this medium is capable of and stoked a desire to search and seek out new ideas.

Glass presents endless creative opportunities. Barb is especially fascinated by the color, both transparent and opaque. She sees each piece as a painting in glass and loves its nature and the chemistry involved. She is currently exploring different avenues, one direction is combining glass with driftwood from the beaches of Lake Erie. She finds that these 2 materials compliment each other in beautiful and unique ways. The other body of work is beaded stoles that study Native American Spirit Animals and their meaning and how animals are here to teach valuable lessons. She has made 4 stoles, a fox, a raccoon, an albino reticulated python, crows and a beaded Bear head.