« Untitled», from the series Tierra del Fuego

The American artist Mary Anne Zynsky (born 1951), also known as Toots Zynsky, has developed a distinctive filet de verre technique in which she composes pieces from wire-thin threads of coloured glass based on the Venetian latticini technique. Initially, the production process of pulling the thin glass threads was carried out by hand. Later, the artist developed a thread-pulling machine with the Dutch engineer Mathijs Teunissen van Manen (1949–2007) to produce more even and stable glass threads more quickly. In a further step, hundreds of individual threads were layered on a flat plate and fused together in the oven. The bowl takes its shape when the plate of threads is then heated again and pressed into a bowl-shaped metal mould. Zynsky uses the threads, which look like three-dimensional “brushstrokes” of glass, to create unique shapes and colour effects. In the series Tierra del Fuego (Eng. “Land of Fire”) she contrasts black with yellow, orange and red tones. During her Bachelor of Fine Arts (B.F.A.) studies at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), Zynsky was trained by the pioneer of American glass art Dale Chihuly (born 1941). In 1971, the two artists co-founded the Pilchuck Glass School in Seattle, which has developed into a centre of the contemporary American Studio Glass Movement.