Lea De Wit

Biography

Glass artist, Lea de Wit, creates sculptures, wall hangings, and vessels that delight and inspire. She has received instruction at Scuola del Vetro, Abate Zanetti, in Murano, Italy, at Red Deer College in Canada, at the Corning Museum of Glass in Corning, New York, and at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in Deer Isle, Maine. She received a scholarship to study with Mary Van Cline at the Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina. She has studied under Italian glassblowing masters, Pino Signoretto, Elio Quarisa and Davide Salvadore, and renowned glass sculpture artist, Karen Willenbrink-Johnsen. Her work is part of art collections at Kaiser Permanente, Marriott International, Inc., Sharp Medical Center, California Bank & Trust, Rady Children’s Hospital, Novartis International AG, City of Vista Civic Center, Professional Hospital Supply Inc., L’Auberge Del Mar, Aveda Corporation, Vistage International Inc., and Running Creek Casino as well as other corporate and private collections nationwide.

Artist Statement

As a teenager, a bone tumor in my spine taught me the lesson that life is too short not to pursue that about which you are passionate. I have worked with various art forms my whole life but, when I started working with hot glass, I was transfixed. The experience of working with a medium that can be molten in one state and breakable in another state is fascinating. The fine line between pliable and fragile creates a challenge that fuels my fervor for the medium. When I start working with the hot glass, I gather the molten material out of a 2200° F furnace on to the end of a long stainless steel pipe. Glass color in various forms from sea salt-sized chunks to powder is melted into the searing mass. I layer color upon color to create depth and intensity while playing with varying degrees of transparency and opacity. Then blowing and sculpting the glass to build the vision in my mind involves the magical dance of selectively heating and cooling the glass to form it into a beautiful sculpture or vessel.