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A job at Greene Glass led Randy Wesner to a new career as an artist in kiln-formed glass
By Lee Roberts
You could say that Randy Wesner is glassy-eyed, but not in the traditional sense of the words. Listen to the Racine artist talk about his glass creations, and you'll find his eyes are anything but transparent and expressionless. Instead, there is excitement in Wesner's eyes as he describes the techniques he uses to make the colorful platters, bowls, pendants and more which will be on display at the Starving Artist Outdoor Art Fair this weekend.
Glass, in its many forms, is something Wesner really enjoys working with. It hasn't always been that way. It wasn't until Wesner took a job as a glass cutter that he discovered his talent in this area.
While working for Greene Glass for a little more than 10 years, he mastered the techniques of glass cutting and learned to repair stained-glass windows. That work led him to explore stained glass as a hobby and eventually as a business, creating custom-designed cabinet doors, windows, signs and more for homes and businesses.
While he still does stained-glass work, it is kiln-formed glass that really stirs Wesner's soul these days. He discovered this art glass technique a few years ago and has been working diligently at it ever since. Simply put, kiln-formed glass is glass that is altered, fused, shaped or textured by the heat of a kiln. It is actually a very old technique that was in use for centuries before the Romans developed glassblowing. And today, modern glass artists are rediscovering its versatility.
And, kiln-formed glass offers many options for creating works of art. Wesner works in a variety of methods, including fusing strips of glass, melting glass through wire grids and flower pots, and fusing thin, string-like glass forms to other glass surfaces.
He also works with blocks of layered glass which he creates in a kiln. Those blocks are then sliced with a special saw to create individual tiles with intricate patterns, much like those that occur naturally in rock and wood. Sometimes Wesner then incorporates those slices of glass into larger pieces, and other times he makes jewelry out of them.
Some are easy, some more complicated - but half the fun of it for Wesner is being able to experiment with different methods and sometimes be surprised by the results.
"I just can't get enough of this stuff," he said. "I can't wait to open the kiln and see what I've got. No two things are ever the same."
Some of his pieces incorporate several different techniques, and one piece may take as many as five days to create, with several kiln firings involved. But that is time Wesner enjoys spending.
These days, glass is his full-time job. He runs his business, Shades of Glass, out of his West Racine home, where most days you will find him either in his basement shop or out back with the kilns.
Looking back, he says he never imagined that his job as a glass cutter would lead him where he is today.
"It just sort of happened," he said.
Other than a few art classes he took in middle school and high school, he's had no formal art training, but he's always been good with his hands. And he has done a lot of research and conferring with other glass artists over the Internet, as well as through books and videos.
If it hadn't been for one of his friends wanting to buy one of his pieces a few years back, he might never have considered selling them, Wesner said. Last year was his first time showing his work at the Starving Artist Outdoor Art Fair, and he had enough success there to convince him to participate again. He has also exhibited in other area art fairs and currently has pieces on display at local galleries, including the Artists Gallery, 414 Sixth St., and the American Artisans Gallery, 5200 Douglas Ave.
Even when he's not working, Wesner turns to glass for enjoyment. One of his hobbies is collecting glass insulators used on telegraph, telephone and electrical lines from about 1850 to the early 1960s. And while they might not sound like something that you'd want to display in your living room, one look at these insulators - with their green, blue and brown translucent glass - and you might change your mind.
They come in different shapes and sizes and, when put up to the light, seem more like works of art than functional pieces of equipment. Wesner became interested in them through his father, who was a railroad buff, and has built his collection up to about 400 pieces.
And he isn't the only one doing so. Wesner belongs to the Greater Chicago Insulators Club, which gets together for swap meets and to share the stories behind some of their finds. It is a diverse group of people ranging from former telephone linemen to university professors. And there are many other groups like it around the country.
"There is a lot of history involved with this," Wesner said.
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