How I Fell in Love with Making Fused Dichroic Glass Jewelry
Ray Kaplan
I fell in love with making fused dichroic glass jewelry over 15 years ago while immersed in deep personal healing work. Creating these pieces offered a way to channel the beauty and love I saw in the world into physical form.
During this time of finding my way through painful places within myself and my life, I spent countless hours in the mountains and forests. The more time I spent there, the more the beauty I witnessed and the sense of belonging I felt began to penetrate my being. Instead of feeling like a separate human in pain, I began to recognize myself as part of something larger—part of the natural world, where there was a place that recognized and reflected my own beauty and innate belonging. I would then take these transformative feelings and spend hours channeling them into my art, watching as the colors of glass shifted in the light before being transformed by fire.
Making and selling glass jewelry supported me on multiple levels as I healed, earned a master's degree in wilderness therapy, and studied bodywork. Through this journey, I finally reached a place within myself where I felt safe enough to embrace the truth of who I am: a trans man. From this place of self-acceptance, the sense of belonging, connection, and beauty that the more-than-human world had been teaching me throughout my life expanded to include the same qualities within my queer, trans, and broader human family.
My passion for making jewelry has evolved from channeling my love and the beauty I feel in the natural world to also expressing the love and beauty I experience in my human connections. May this jewelry remind you of your own innate beauty and belonging in both worlds.
How I make the Glass Jewelry…
I create unique fused dichroic glass jewelry featuring images of nature, animals, symbols, and much more embedded within the glass. Many pieces incorporate the colors of the pride and trans flags. Some designs are set in silver, while others combine both fused glass and metalsmithing techniques, such as soldering copper images into silver settings.
My creative process begins by carefully arranging multiple pieces of dichroic glass and embedding designs between the layers. I then fuse these components in a kiln at 1500 degrees for 10 hours, often repeating this process multiple times to achieve the desired effect. After fusing, I meticulously shape each piece through carving, grinding, and/or precision cutting with a diamond saw.
What makes dichroic glass so special is its composition – micro-layers of metal oxides within the glass create a mesmerizing effect, causing colors to shift and transform as light moves through the piece.
