Creature comforts: Interview with Lea Lenhart

Lea Lenhart has developed her childhood love of glass beads into a glass practice that celebrates nature and beauty through flameworked glass ‘beings’. Linda Banks finds out more.

You are a gifted artist and painter. What made you start working with glass?

I have been collecting glass beads since I was a child and have spent many hours making little things with them, or just dumping the material together and sorting it again. My studies at the Düsseldorf Art Academy in Germany began with classical painting, which I always found a struggle.

The small box of childhood beads gave me the idea of ​​creating a kind of painting with them, so I started drawing designs and using the beads like pixels. My first woven pictures were portraits of my friends. Later, these were followed by butterflies, beetles, garden pictures and abstract works. The largest work, ‘Hortus Conclusus’, consists of over 400,000 glass beads – I worked on it for a year.

During this time, the desire for three-dimensionality grew, so I began to embroider glass beads (now including larger ones too) onto canvas. This resulted in underwater objects that were often backed with painting on Plexiglas.

When this material was also exhausted and I could not achieve the liveliness with it that I desired, I took an intensive course with Maggie Napier in Banbridge, Northern Ireland. She introduced me to the mystery of glass melting and showed me basic techniques. She is a wonderful glass artist and teacher!

It was a golden time of my life. I knew that glass melting was my medium for artistic expression! I was so excited that I hardly slept for four nights. I was, and am, driven by a longing to mould the glass into the shape I want. Since then, not a day goes by without me having glass in my hands. This may be at the burner or when sorting, and, later, when embroidering.

It is so wonderful to see what flows from my hands. When experimenting with different types of glass, I learn about their possibilities and qualities. Each type of glass has its own secret; each has a different liquidity. Therefore, I use soft glass for leaves, drops and balls, but hard glass for the more dimensionally stable tentacles. I also love the colour change found in some canes. This is particularly pronounced when working with silver glass. I find it incredible what little cosmoses are created.

Which glass techniques have you used and which do you prefer?

As mentioned, it all started with web images, where I threaded thousands of rocailles beads based on a plan I drew. Later came the embroidered underwater objects, for which I used mostly industrially produced glass beads.

Now, I have been melting glass on a torch for six years. This is definitely my home!

Occasionally, I use a small glass grinding machine or etching agents to give my glass a matt finish.

Please tell us more about your creative approach. Do you draw your ideas out or dive straight in with the materials?

I am always looking for beauty. During my studies I met the incredible artist Rosemarie Trockel, who was a professor at the Academy of Fine Art in Düsseldorf. She said that I should not listen to anyone who called my art ‘decorative’. Instead, she told me that I should look for beauty and take it to the most extreme limits. This is my credo!

For me, colours are a very important aspect of beauty. There are colour combinations that I like to immerse myself in. Small nuances make a color shine. A lot lies in contrasts, such as light-dark values, which ​ have to be right. At the start of my studies colour theory was my favourite subject. Now I know why!

I only make sketches on vacation, when I do not have any glass to hand. In everyday life I don’t have time for drawings. The objects are created, sometimes with a vision that I follow, sometimes by chance when putting together the most diverse materials. Often, when embroidering the different elements, I notice that a shape or a colour accent is missing. This is then created in the next step on the torch.

You often depict nature in your work. What message(s) do you want to convey with your art?

I have always been very moved by nature and feel incredible happiness when looking at flowers or walking through forests or gardens. These are incredibly delicate creatures that surround us humans and nourish us. The destruction and loss of these ‘beings’ hurts me deeply. Therefore, I try to create my own beings that bring inspiration, beauty and joy to the world.

What is your favorite tool or device and why?

I love the torch. Working on it is a great meditation. The process of melting glass has an incredibly calming effect on me. It’s a bit like watching the most diverse shapes flow from my hands.

Do you have a favourite piece or collection that you have created? Why is it your favourite?

I have been working on my ‘Sea Creatures’ series for three years now. This collection is actually a large experimental laboratory. I’m always testing out new glasses, trying to explore their possibilities, combining the resulting shapes with the thousands of glass beads that I’ve collected over the years. In terms of numbers produced, an object is created every day. I see this work as a kind of training…

Where do you show and sell your work?

The recently renovated Hentrich Glass Museum in Düsseldorf has purchased a large installation of my sea creatures for its permanent exhibition. In addition, the “On the Way” exhibition opened in November 2024 at the Fils Fine Arts Gallery in Düsseldorf, featuring a large installation of the sea creatures and some larger objects. Next February 2025, my work will be shown at the Art Fair in Karlsruhe and with Fils Fine Arts Gallery.

Where is your creative practice heading next?

At the moment I’m still at home experimenting with the sea creatures theme. However, increasingly, I find I am limited by size, so I’m currently creating some larger, more complex objects in which I replace missing colours with yarn, which I use to embroider the ‘bases’.

And finally…

I came across Dani Müller on Instagram. She lives in my home town, St. Gallen, in Switzerland. I discovered that we even went to the same school for a year. Like me, she has developed wonderful murrini beads through experimentation and trial and error. She makes ‘in’ the glass what I make out of the glass. Her murrinis can be found in many of my objects. Her world of shapes and colours is another great inspiration for me!

Find out more about Lea Lenhart and her work via her website.

Main image: Detail of ‘Orange Sea Fan Flower with Feather Grass I’, (2016). Made from sequins and glass beads embroidered on canvas, with acrylic painting on Plexiglass, this piece measures 30cm diameter. Photo: Lea Lenhart.