Sally Initially trained as a furniture and Jewellery designer at Edinburgh College of Art going on to make and teach how to make silver jewellery. Sally explains that when she discovered glass she was in ‘seventh heaven’, for it enabled her to make larger pieces but create designs driven by colour as well as texture. Sally gets a lot of her inspiration from the colours and forms on the West Coast of Scotland and from her childhood in the English Lake district.

When Sally first began working with glass her pieces were very abstract, but has since Changed focus to one of her other great inspirations of nature: birds and animals. All of her artworks are individually made so no two ornaments are quite the same.

To create one of Sally’s fused glass artwork, she uses Bullseye glass from Warm Glass UK, and begins creating her animals in her studio in Pencaitland. The glass comes in varying forms from sheet glass, frit (small pieces of glass), stringers, rods and powdered glass yet using only Bullseye glass allows her to mix and match the variety of glass types without worrying about compatibility. Sally often use all forms of glass in one piece of art to create the right patterns and textures she is trying to capture. When making an artwork, the glass is pieced together then heated in a specialist kiln up to around 800°C, some pieces utilise a mould to create more three dimensional pieces.

Sally particularly enjoys making colourful creatures such as glass birds, glass fish and beautiful Sun Catchers for either indoors or out. She enjoys trying to capture the essence of her favourite creatures ones that are a little less colourful but are full of characters such as Oystercatchers, Puffins, Herons, Highland Cows and sheep.