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Wendy Wooding Sees the World Through Glass
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Wendy Wooding shows off a small platter featuring a dog in front of crates containing the cut glass she uses to make plates and platters.
 
 
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Sunday, August 14, 2022
 

STORY AND PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK

Glass butterflies sporting blue and green swirls tilt their wings, giving the appearance of being ready to fly out of the glass studio tucked away in the woods in Gimlet.

Birds perch next to columnar glass pieces depicting the sun and moon atop mountains, rivers and woods.

And, everywhere, there are glass dogs caught doing what dogs do best—chasing tennis balls and romping around the mountains.

 
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This whimsical piece featuring a yellow lab chasing a tennis ball is one a few glass creations brightening Wendy Wooding’s yard.
 

Wendy Wooding’s new Art Attack Glass studio is rife with colorful, imaginative plates and platters, lampstands and figurines designed to capture the fancy of any visitor who enters. And she will introduce visitors to the process, showing how she creates these whimsical and lovely pieces, this coming weekend during the Artist Studio Tour of the Wood River Valley.

Forty-one artists will open their studios to visitors from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday through Sunday, Aug. 19-21.  They’ll be happy to discuss techniques and inspiration. The tour map appears in an Eye on Sun Valley ad, and it is available at https://artiststudiotour.com/locations/

Wooding, a native of Maine, became enamored with working with stained glass while in college. Upon moving to Boise, she began expanding into other ways of using colored glass, making kiln-formed glass jewelry and glass wall pieces in her small home studio in Boise’s North End.

She and her husband moved to Ketchum this past October, lured by 400-plus miles of single-track mountain biking. And, since, she has trotted her art out at the Papoose Club Holiday Bazaar, Ketchum Arts Festival and Farmer’s Markets.

 
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Birds sit next to columnar art pieces depicting the outdoors.
 

“I hope to showcase my take-home DIY kits here,” she said, pointing to small Tupperware containers containing four pieces of glass and other materials to make colorful Christmas tree ornaments.

“People loved them in Boise. People create them, and I fire them and give them back. I sold out during the pandemic when people were doing so many arts and crafts.”

Wooding’s own creations are more complicated. She might, for instance, take a clear piece of glass and scratch a design on it, sketching from the backside rather than the front. She then takes a tiny sifter about half the size of a dime to drop glass powder she has chosen from dozens of colors onto it.

When done, she fires it in her kiln—where the scratch is, is where the color shows up.

 
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A platter featuring crows sits next to a bowl boasting a dot technique.
 

For the butterflies she slumps the wings, turning them upwards before firing them so they look like they could fly away. By the time she’s added the body and antenna, the butterflies have gone through three firings.

She picked up a curved platter featuring two colors of green, striped borders and a willow branch. She sprayed the willow leaves with hair spray. Then she fired it so that the leaves burned off leaving a ghost image of the willow branch.

“I like I because it so natural looking,” she said.

Wooding participated in Art Walks and donated piece to various causes, such as a Valentine’s Day fundraiser for AIDS research, while in Boise. She is enjoying creating pieces with mountain bikers and other Sun Valley scenes now that she lives here.

 
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Wendy Wooding holds an art piece featuring Baldy and aspen trees inspired by those around her home.
 

She picks up a dish featuring Bald Mountain that’s made out of several layers of glass.

“It lights up when you put light behind it,” she said holding it up to the sun.

Wooding recently began to make her own glass, using pieces of glass which she melts together to create original colors. The one constant, she said, is that you can never make enough dogs—at least, not in this valley.

“People love their dogs—they send me pictures of their dogs to put on plates and platters,” she said. “So, yes, I do a lot of dogs.”

 

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