Fused Glass Art Installation

Fused Glass Art Installation

From Engineering to Emotion: How My Fused Glass Art Began

In making art, I wasn’t chasing the real or the unreal. I was searching for something deeper—something mysterious and often hidden. I was after the unconscious, the layered self, and the quiet transformation that comes when we truly awaken.

During my years in the business world, I traveled widely—visiting circuit card manufacturers across continents, working alongside engineers to solve design puzzles and select the right components. I came to see circuit cards not just as functional devices, but as intricate compositions—microcosms of order and innovation. There was beauty in their precision, a kind of silent elegance in the way they powered everything from smartphones to missile guidance systems. That world shaped me. It gave me a lens for seeing technology as art and eventually nudged me to bring that sensibility into my own creative process.

I started experimenting—with materials, with form, with light. Plexiglass became my first playground, later evolving into printed aluminum as a base for fused glass. It was a slow, intuitive unfolding, each step guided less by a plan and more by a feeling—by curiosity, by resonance, by an inner yes.

Much of my inspiration came from the Light and Space movement that emerged in Southern California in the 1960s. These artists used new materials—resins, fiberglass, industrial plastics—and aimed not to depict but to evoke: space, light, stillness, presence. Their minimalism wasn’t empty; it was alert, alive. I was drawn in. I began taking classes at Santa Monica College, signing up for workshops, opening myself to a new language I barely understood but somehow recognized.

My first encounter with plexiglass came during a home renovation. I was searching for a bold focal point for one of the rooms—something clean, luminous, and unexpected. Plexiglass answered that call. It offered a broad, uninterrupted field of color and light, onto which I mounted painted canvases. Though invented in the 1930s, plexiglass still felt modern—sleek, strong, and versatile. Used in advertising, architecture, and design, it brought with it a kind of clarity I was craving.

Then came the fused glass. In a workshop, I stumbled on tiles that shimmered with a glossy, magnetic finish. Their sensuality—the way they caught the light—felt familiar. I paired them with plexiglass, curious to see what would happen. At the time, I didn’t know I was beginning a body of work. I was simply following the thread of what moved me.

Forging Light from Shadows

I turned my garage into a working studio, outfitted with a large kiln and everything I needed to explore the union of fused glass and plexiglass. What began as a hands-on experiment quickly grew into a deeper pursuit—an unfolding process that drew me into questions of composition, proportion, and color theory, along with the technical intricacies of working with two very different materials. Fused glass, forgiving by nature, welcomed slight imperfections in cutting. Plexiglass, on the other hand, demanded nothing short of precision.

To bring my designs to life, I turned to Google SketchUp, drafting each piece meticulously before feeding the files into a CNC Laser Cutting Machine. CNC—short for Computer Numerical Control—uses data from the design software to guide the laser with pinpoint accuracy. The result: perfect cuts with minimal warping or error. I was fortunate to collaborate with the talented team at Laseronics Advance Laser Dies, whose skill and generosity helped translate my digital drawings into physical components with grace and fidelity. From there, I refined techniques to bind the fused glass and plexiglass into unified, self-contained panels—each one supported by custom mounting brackets I designed for clean, seamless display.

Those early experiments became the groundwork for my next evolution: fusing glass tiles onto aluminum panels. The shift opened new dimensions—more saturated color fields, expanded composition styles, and a different kind of interaction with light.

But the true turning point in my creative journey came during an art class critique. I had presented a piece with four painted canvases, divided by a bold horizontal line and mounted on a sheet of plexiglass. My teacher, Linda Lopez—a mentor whose insight I’ve come to deeply value—paused, tilted her head, and asked: “It’s interesting, but what is your intention?”

Her question stopped me in my tracks.

Inside, I knew the answer. Or rather, I felt it. My mind went straight to the silent undertow of my life: the legacy of being a second-generation Holocaust survivor.

Growing up, I always wanted to know more about what my father had endured during the war—his memories, his pain, the unspeakable chapters of his life. But he couldn’t go there. He spoke in facts and timelines, never emotion. He couldn’t “touch the fire,” as I came to describe it. I understood early on that the agony, the shame, and the loss were buried too deep. Still, they clung to him. They were in his gait, his silences, the haunted look in his eyes, and the numbers tattooed on his arm.

What he couldn’t say out loud, I began to imagine. In the absence of his story, I created my own—a vivid, inner cinema of the trauma he carried but couldn’t name. It was like living next to a black hole: silent, invisible, but inescapably powerful. A place where light vanished. And in response, I began seeking ways to make light visible again.

Touching the Fire, Taming Demons

My father survived four concentration camps. When the Nazis deported Jews by train, they were herded into cattle cars—crammed shoulder to shoulder, without food or water, stripped of dignity. As a child, I often imagined myself in those boxcars. What would I feel? What would I cling to?

The only solace I could conjure was a slit in the wooden wall—just wide enough to glimpse the outside world. I imagined peering through it and composing a symphony of color as green forests, blue lakes, and snow-dusted mountains rushed past. In that vision, the horizon became everything. It was motion, it was promise—it was the one thing that couldn’t be taken away.

That image stayed with me. And when I began working with fused glass tiles, I decided to focus on that single element: the horizon line. Ever-changing, yet unbroken. What followed became a kind of personal odyssey—my own Sisyphean pursuit. Over several years, I created hundreds of tiles. Each one unique in color and shape, yet all bound by the line. It was a gesture of healing, an act of quiet rebellion. My father had been transported toward Auschwitz. I was moving away from it—toward meaning, toward light.

This work wasn’t about reconstructing geography. I wasn’t interested in replicating the literal landscapes of Europe. What I sought instead was an emotional landscape—filtered through memory, imagination, and will. I wanted to distort, to bend, to shape—to turn pain into intention. In doing so, I reclaimed authorship over a story I had inherited but never chosen.

In art, the line is foundational. It defines space. It separates and connects. There are infinite ways to draw a line between two points. I had to find my own—one that captured the openness of the horizon while weaving in fluid, organic forms. This led me to a technique of twisting glass while molten.

It was a thrilling, almost alchemical process. Once the kiln reached 1700°F, the colored glass tiles softened to a uniform orange-red glow—just malleable enough to move. I would open the kiln door and, using a BBQ spatula, twist the glass into flowing shapes. I had only seconds—10, maybe 20—before the material began to harden. Then it was over. I’d cool the piece, inspect the results, and start again.

Each tile became a collaboration between control and chaos. The swirling colors, the unexpected streaks and folds—they weren’t planned. They emerged. And when the kiln finally cooled to room temperature, hours later, I would lift the lid and witness something I could never fully predict.

Over time, this ritual became a lesson in surrender. A practice in letting go. I started calling it my “Let go and let God” moment. It challenged my perfectionism and asked me to trust the process—to trust that what would emerge might be more beautiful, more true, than anything I could force into being.

Through this discipline of fire, form, and release, I gave shape to my inner world. The tiles became not just art, but testimony. Evidence of a journey: from silence toward expression, from shame toward integration, from trauma toward transcendence.

The Void Speaks: Rothko, Wiesel, and the Weight of Memory

Elie Wiesel once said, “The Holocaust cannot be described, it cannot be communicated, it is unexplainable. To me, it is a mystical event. I have the feeling almost of sin when I speak about it.” As I searched for a way to present my own work, his words hovered over me like a haunting reminder. How could I speak the unspeakable? How could I express the enormity of devastation without presuming to speak for the six million who were lost? I needed to find a way to make the work mine—deeply personal—without stepping into the sacred terrain of those whose stories ended in silence.

Fortunately, the many exhibitions I had encountered over the years helped shape my approach. One, in particular, changed everything.

In 1982, I stood for the first time before Mark Rothko’s Seagram Murals at the Tate Gallery in London. Mounted high on warm gray walls, the paintings drew my gaze upward—as if inviting a silent dialogue with something far greater than myself. I sat in the center of the gallery, surrounded by Rothko’s luminous voids: blood-deep reds, muddy browns, velvety blacks. His brushstrokes were bold yet soft, layered one atop another, vibrating with internal light. There was no narrative, no image—only space, only presence.

The room itself became a kind of temple. Rothko had created more than paintings; he had created a threshold. I found myself immersed in a realm of stillness, where my deepest longings, griefs, and questions could float freely. In that vast silence, I sensed something holy. It felt like being in the company of ghosts—and gods.

Rothko, himself a Jewish immigrant from Russia, emerged as a leading figure in Abstract Expressionism—a movement born in the wake of WWII. These artists, grappling with the horror of the concentration camps and the shadows of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, turned away from realism. Their canvases became vessels for what could not be shown. As if to say: How can one paint flowers or reclining nudes after Auschwitz? They weren’t interested in images—they were interested in impact. In presence. In bearing emotional truth without words.

Rothko’s work spoke to that yearning in me. Like Wiesel, he seemed to understand that the Holocaust resists articulation. But instead of silence, he offered another language—one built of color, texture, and space. A language of feeling. A language of absence and ache. One that didn’t try to explain, but instead allowed us to feel what explanation could never hold.

This encounter gave me permission—not to imitate Rothko, but to follow my own path. To create a space where memory and imagination could coexist. Where grief didn’t need translation. Where light could emerge from shadow, and where the unconscious might finally speak.

Fused Glass Tiles on Aluminum: A Dance of Precision and Flow

Building on my earlier work with plexiglass as a background for fused glass tiles, I began searching for a material that offered more versatility in color and allowed for greater freedom of form. That search led me to printed aluminum—lightweight yet resilient sheets onto which I could imprint custom designs using Adobe Illustrator. Unlike the rigid, rectilinear feel of plexiglass, printed aluminum opened a new realm of expression. Its surface invited movement—fluid lines, layered patterns, and wavy shapes that resonated with the molten twists of the fused glass.

This dialogue between materials gave birth to what I now call Fused Glass Tiles on Aluminum. It’s a process that lives in the tension between control and surrender. The aluminum panels, with their carefully designed backgrounds, offer structure and intentionality. The fused glass tiles, formed under extreme heat, embody unpredictability, flow, and transformation.

At 1700°F, the glass becomes liquid enough to twist and shape—but only for moments. Each tile carries the memory of fire, the imprint of motion. The aluminum, in contrast, remains steady and exact, grounding the piece in balance. Together, they form a dynamic interplay—a dance of precision and flow. This fusion of materials has allowed me to explore more complex compositions and deepen my commitment to organic forms, light, and texture. What emerges are works that reflect movement, impermanence, and the quiet alchemy of turning heat and memory into beauty.

Beyond the Darkness

The Holocaust was not just a historical atrocity—it was a calculated, industrialized system of annihilation. Genocide on a scale so vast, so mechanized, it defies language. The trauma it left behind lingers like radiation—haunting survivors, reshaping families, altering entire cultures. As the son of a survivor, I have spent my life navigating that legacy. And as an artist, I face a question that lives at the core of my practice:

How do I honor the dead, the survivors, and the shadow I carry—without becoming trapped by it?

How can art bear witness without succumbing to despair?

I don’t want my work to end with horror. I want it to begin there—and move beyond. I want it to carry transformation. To offer a path through silence into voice, through pain into presence. To speak not just of suffering, but of resilience, humanity, and the possibility of beauty rising from ashes.

These questions led me to envision a large-scale, immersive installation—a space for reflection, for feeling, for healing. I imagined a room with soaring ceilings, quiet light, and room to breathe. Along two opposing walls, matching panels stretch out in rhythmic sequence—each a composition of fused glass tiles on printed aluminum. In the corners, video projections loop in gentle cycles—evoking landscapes, memories, and layers of time. Together, these elements surround the viewer in a kind of sacred geometry. Not a shrine to tragedy, but a space for transformation. A place where art becomes a vessel—not just of memory, but of hope.

Horizons of Resilience

The fused glass tiles—mounted on aluminum or plexiglass—serve as the beating heart of the installation. Their vibrant colors and fluid forms create a rhythmic sense of motion, a pulse that guides the viewer through space and time. As visitors move through the room, subtle shifts in hue and texture mirror the internal terrain of memory and transformation. At the center of it all, the horizon line repeats—a constant through change, a symbol of both separation and connection, stillness and movement.

Each horizontal row of glass tiles evokes the feeling of watching a landscape unfold from the window of a fast-moving train. There’s something familiar in the blurred color fields, the rectangular shapes, the quiet tension between order and flow. It’s a visual metaphor that grounds the work in the duality I return to again and again: motion and stillness, memory and presence, loss and becoming.

In each corner of the room, a looping video collage adds another layer of experience. The footage—a four-hour train journey across the snowbound terrain of Norway, from Bergen to Oslo—is slow, meditative, almost hypnotic. The vast whiteness of the landscape and the gray-blue sky create a sense of emptiness and calm. But each time the train enters a tunnel, that calm is shattered.

In those moments of darkness, the screen becomes a portal—flashing archival footage, fragments of history, signposts from Shoah, Claude Lanzmann’s 1985 cinematic monument to memory. Cattle trains. Stations. Silence. Ghosts. The soundscape follows suit, oscillating between quiet, meditative tones and sudden cries—pain breaking through serenity, history piercing the present.

➤ Explore the Claude Lanzmann film Shoah—a monumental documentary that shaped the visual and emotional core of the installation.

The installation doesn’t dictate meaning. It invites it. Visitors are encouraged to bring their own stories, their own struggles, and to find in the space a mirror—not just for pain, but for healing. This is not a passive experience; it is a journey of engagement. A portal for those willing to walk through it.

My hope is that this work becomes a place where resilience can take root. Where memory doesn’t weigh us down but opens us. Where art carries the weight of history without being crushed by it. A place where the human spirit, even in its darkest hours, can begin to reclaim the light.

In 2013, I was honored to present this work at the Harriet and Kenneth Kupferberg Holocaust Museum in Queens, NY. I named the installation The Train from Auschwitz: A Journey from Shame to Self-Realization. That title still rings true. It is not just about my father’s journey. It is about mine. And perhaps, in some way, about yours.

➤ Visit the Harriet & Kenneth Kupferberg Holocaust Center—the venue that first hosted this deeply personal multimedia work in 2013.

➤ Experience the Bergen to Oslo Train Journey—a meditative video that forms the backdrop for the installation’s visual rhythm and emotional contrast.

Finding the Oneness

At times, I am an engineer—evaluating materials, weighing options, executing precise technical solutions. I combine fused glass tiles with aluminum or plexiglass sheets, seeking harmony through contrast. Then there are moments when I am the craftsman, repeating motions like a musician practicing scales, aiming for refinement through repetition.

I reach a peak state of awareness when I cut a slab of fused glass into perfect rectangles. My muscle memory guides my hands, ensuring no finger ever drifts near the blade. My eyes lock onto the line where blade meets glass, while my ears absorb an audiobook. Everything is alert, everything is aligned. In these moments, mind, body, and spirit converge in a quiet, focused unity. This is where I feel most alive—inside the flow, where time dissolves and the world falls away.

The beauty I seek to create is not merely visual. It is a way to touch the ineffable—a bridge to what cannot be spoken. Art becomes my language for reckoning with the inherited weight of ancestral shame, a burden that is both personal and collective. The act of making becomes a process of remembering, releasing, and returning.

The journey toward self-realization—toward finding the authentic self—demands more than technical skill. It asks for deep preparation of the heart. It asks for surrender. It asks us to recognize, accept, and embrace the slow unfolding of what it means to be whole.

In Taoist thought, The Way means understanding your place in the cosmos—and knowing that your place is small. But it is yours. And within that smallness lies a vast, intimate truth. This is where I find meaning. This is where I find peace.

Revised, May 2025