Piecing it all together

Topeka Capital-Journal, The, Nov 1, 2003 by Lisa Sandmeyer Capital-Journal

When Dee Newbery first started creating artwork with glass, she worked with castoff scraps.

Woven with copper wire, the colorful shards became wall or window hangings that play with the light.

Newbery takes a similar approach to decorating throughout her southwest Topeka home. A fan of estate sales, she has found many treasures under layers of wear.

One find was a wooden bench by noted 20th century designer George Nelson, which Newbery picked up for $10. The retail price for such a bench is around $600, she said.

The dining room table and chairs was another find. The wood was pickled white, Newbery said, but the classic lines of the 1940s-era set made it too good to pass up.

She took the set to Macfee Refinishing and had the pieces stained and painted in a brown and black combination.

Newbery also took the mirror that covered one entire wall of the dining room and cut it into a more interesting shape. It now takes up about half the wall space.

"I like this centerpieced mirror being slightly askew," she said.

Formerly a resident of Westboro, Newbery said she was attracted to her current residence by its nontraditional interior.

But even that needed some tweaking, she said.

The California-style living room had a raised floor, requiring a step up into the room from the front door and a step down to the patio doors on the other side.

"It made furniture placement difficult," Newbery said.

The lower floor along the patio was tiled, she said, which made sense for traffic coming in from the in-ground pool.

Knocking the floor down to a single level has allowed her to create conversational groupings with the furniture.

The house's design was influenced by Frank Lloyd Wright architecture, Newbery said. One of his principles was that the room should be lower at the entrance, to encourage movement into the larger space of the house. To accomplish this, Newbery's house has a ledge across the front of the living room.

The Wright influence can be seen outside in the wide eaves. These are designed so that they shade the interior in the summer, when the sun is high in the sky, and let warming rays in during the winter, when the sun is low.

When she moved in five years ago, the decor in most of the rooms was blue. The walls are now done in deep neutrals.

Where it wasn't blue, there was pink. In one bathroom, though, Newbery was able to keep the tile flooring by changing the wall color. Turning the walls from pink to terra cotta made the pink tones in the existing floor disappear, she said.

Newbery put opaque glass in the transoms above the patio doors. When the pool is open, the opaque glass causes the water's reflection to create waves of light through the living room.

Opaque glass also replaced the doors on the upper kitchen cabinets. And it forms an arty top for the half-wall around the staircase that leads to the studio downstairs where Newbery creates art glass.

Her first forays into glass work were wall-hangings of colored glass pieces woven with copper wire.

While on vacation a few years ago, she saw a sign: "Hands-on art studio." Inside, she found a space that offered instruction in ceramics, painting, tin work and glass fusing.

She headed straight for the fusing space and found out it was fun. When she returned to Topeka, she sought out a local woman who could teach her more, and she took a class at Washburn University.

Now, Newbery has her own workshop, with one kiln for large pieces and a smaller one for jewelry pieces.

"It's like quilting but with glass," she said. "I cut and grind and piece."

And it isn't all art. Newbery needs to know a little science, too.

"Glass always wants to be 6 millimeters thick," she said. So she layers 3 millimeter "quilt" pieces on 3 millimeter clear glass.

Dark colors of glass need to be baked in the kiln longer than light colors to fuse.

On her worktable, Newbery keeps test strips she made so she can see at a glance how particular types of glass will fuse in the kiln.

But even the most careful preparation can't guarantee the final results.

"When you open the kiln door, it's always like Christmas," she said.

Sometimes, she is disappointed --- she showed a piece that had bubbled up and burst in the final firing.

But most of the time, Newbery gets what she had wished for.

Since she sells her work, Newbery is aware that some customers find glass objects high-priced.

"Commercial glass is melted, poured in a mold and sent down and assembly line," she said. "It's cheap because no one handled it."

She handles glass, cutters, torches and grinders to create her pieces.

"When I have a five Band-Aid day, I stop," she said.

Lisa Sandmeyer can be reached at (785) 295-5619 or lisa.sandmeyer@cjonline.com.