Mary Angus Works

Biography

Mary Angus began working with blown glass at Southern Connecticut State University in 1973.  After graduating in 1975, Mary set up her first studio in Branford, Connecticut. In 1983, Mary and her husband, glass sculptor K. William LeQuier, moved to a small town in southern Vermont.  Both artists share the glass studio they built in a 100-year-old mill building in the village center. 

As Mary Angus blows and shapes the molten glass, she dusts the surface of the final gather with a thin layer of powdered colored glass.  The heat involved in the blowing process fuses the powdered glass to the gather’s surface.  After the blown piece has been formed and then cooled, Mary uses a resist to create a pattern on the surface of the piece.  Each piece is designed individually; the pattern created complementing the form of the piece.  Areas unprotected by the resist material are then carved away by sandblasting the surface with an abrasive.  As a final step, perfume bottles are hand-fit with a teardrop shaped, clear glass stopper.

Some of Mary’s pieces are carved in low relief with the raised areas highlighted by the dusting of colored glass.  Others have deeply carved sculptural surfaces.  An interior layer of colored glass glows softly from within the carved and acid-etched surfaces.

Artist's Statement

I create objects that show the beauty of glass – the translucency, the way glass moves when it’s molten, the effects of color, light, and shadow on a form.  My pieces show the beauty and fluidity of molten glass through the graceful curves and proportions of the blown vessel.  I use subtle relief or more sculptural carving to highlight the effects of light and shadow on the form.  I especially love working with the perfume bottle, I feel it is a very sensual piece, precious and intimate in scale, a vessel meant to contain fragrance and evoke memories.