Rhonda Bruggeman
"Rhonda's Bits of Glass & Pottery"
On Display: March - April 2023
This show is available during business hours (Tuesday – Friday from 10 am – 5 pm) or on weekends by advance appointment only.
BIOGRAPHY:
Rhonda is the artist behind the scenes of Rhonda's Bits of Glass and Pottery in Papillion, Nebraska. Rhonda works from her home studio as a full-time artist. She has art in area co-op style galleries, as well as participates in several local art shows throughout the year. Rhonda primarily works with glass using various forms, including powdered glass, frits, sheet glass and molten glass called vitrigraph. She also works with non-fusible glass creating mosaics and garden stones. She began working with glass in 1999 as a self-taught stained glass and mosaic artist; stopped for a while and started working with fused glass full time in 2015. She is constantly learning new techniques to offer a wide variety of styles. She accepts commission glass work.
Rhonda started glazing pottery made by her husband in 2020 and has recently begun hand building and slab work pottery pieces. She uses a wide variety of glazes and glazing styles in her work. They are developing their own unique styles and their offerings are ever changing.
ARTIST STATEMENT:
Rhonda is a glass artist who studies the outdoors every chance she gets not only because of her love for it, but because it is the focus of her art style. She spends a lot of time outdoors observing and enjoying trees, lakes, flowers, and animals. She takes photos as a reference, capturing fine details including colors and textures. Capturing dew drops remaining on leaves lying on the ground, or the serenity of the lake on an early, foggy morning. She loves putting what she sees into the pieces of art she creates.
She uses various forms of glass to bring to life memories of what she has seen. She enjoys the relaxation of working with powdered glass to create fused glass paintings. Adding layers of powdered glass and various sizes of crushed glass frit adds depth, texture, and shading to my pieces. She pulls hot glass from a kiln to create stems and grass components used in her work. She also uses enamels and underglazes on a specially created texture on the glass to create watercolor style fused glass paintings.
In order to create texture, she experiments with various kiln firing schedules. Some pieces are fired multiple times to create various shapes and textures. Each piece she creates has its own story and often represents places she has visited or dreamt of visiting. Some of her pieces have a photographic appearance, while others are whimsical. She uses vibrant colors of glass in her whimsical pieces. Her nature pieces use earthy tones with pops of color to capture the feel of the gardens, trees, and flowers they are meant to represent.
