COUNTING DOWN the days until the PSO Designer's Showhouse!
I moved to Maine in May of 2010, to an area called Munjoy Hill. I would walk the golden retriever past this beautiful studio and peer into the windows...it became quite a habit. When I found out I was going to participate in the PSO Designer's Showhouse, I summoned up the nerve to introduce myself to this awesome artist!
Maine artist, Laura Fuller lives and works in Portland, Maine. She grew up in Bath, Maine and has also lived in Paris, France. Laura was a founding owner of the Hay Gallery in Portland, Maine and now has the Laura FullerGlass Design Studio and Gallery on Munjoy Hill in Portland (my hood!)
Laura has been working in stained glass twenty years. She began putting three-dimensional objects in her panels while still in school. When discouraged by her instructor from this innovative technique, she committed to the craft of incorporating found objects into her complex glass pieces. Each unique relief expresses not only her story, but also that of the objects incorporated within.
For Laura, each object is a reflection of the complex narrative of life-- past, present and future:
"Life is change. That is the only reliable certainty. It is constantly and continually progressing and altering. Unexpected and uncertain in outcome, it is certain in process.Objects are our representatives. 'Living' solid, fruitful, domestic, useful lives: indepedently functional. These objects, having given 2 to 200 years of faithful service, became hidden. In drawers, closets, dumps, underground, and in the ocean --waiting.
Now newly born, part of a different whole. Suspended to be gazed at, in reverence. In honor of their, and our, past lives. The beauty is in the years of touch as marked by many hands. The experiences portrayed trigger memories, of events lived and imagined. And of what will become."
Laura finds inspiration in "Light, memory, love and the beauty of an unexpected line, artists like Mondrian and Kandinski, seeing a beautiful, old, stone building covered with scaffolding, the blending of sleek and worn, ancient and modern"
I commissioned a piece of Fuller Glass for the showhouse, and working with her has been a joy. I walked into her gallery a total stranger with a crazy idea, and have found a kindred spirit passionate about supporting the arts...and creating her own special space within the showhouse. She has combined the spirit of the Symphony Orchestra, Interior Design, our shared organic and the modern influences, the proximity to the ocean....all in one piece. Here is about 25% of the piece, a partial sneak preview:
My inspiration for "Adagio" was the simple, elegant beauty in the shape of a violin. And a sense of peace.-Laura Fuller
Nope! That's all you get to see! So far every person who has seen this piece has been amazed, I couldn't be happier with the response. I chose a great crystal flushmount light fixture for the space that casts tiny rainbows on the walls surrounding it-the tiny entry now feels like another world.
When asked for a favorite quote or words to live by, her response was
"Do all things with love."
Hmmn....is that why I love her work?
Laura Fuller, FullerGlass Laurafullerdesign.com
129 Congress street Portland ME 04101
Ralph Farnham Blood's photography dates back to the 1930's and his wife, Laura Blood, hand colored all the photographs.The White House owns a large original of “Portland Head Light, 1931″. 
