Glass artist interview with Rebecca Tanda

Fresh from her successful exhibition at Collect 2025 in London, Rebecca Tanda explains how she combines pâte-de-verre and flameworking techniques to create unique art and wearable pieces. Linda Banks finds out more.

What led you to start working with glass?

I was educated in sculpture and print making, but not in a specific medium. However, this gave me confidence with making and casting moulds. Glass had always fascinated me and I gradually developed ways of working with it outside of a hot shop context. For a while, this meant embedding glass into liquid silicone and then sewing this rubbery-sharp matter together to arrive at dimensional forms.

Several years later, I am based in Zwiesel in Bavaria, Germany, with my studio in the neighbouring Frauenau. Both towns are historically well known for their glass production and critical role in the development of the studio glass movement in Europe. I am lucky to be part of a new generation of glassmakers, both local and farther afield, who are settling and setting up studios in this region.

What glass techniques have you used, and which do you prefer?

I work with pâte-de-verre and flameworking, finding ways of combining these two processes to create work that is wearable and for the wall. I feel really close to both approaches, because of the direct, tactile relationship with the glass that they offer the maker. I also really enjoy the physicality and concentration that go into the process of model and mould making, and then, ultimately, the pâte-de-verre process itself. I combine these two methods primarily by weaving and shaping borosilicate glass rods through holes in the delicate pâte-de-verre to arrive at a finished work that is fragile but mutually reinforcing.

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

I dedicate time to sketching and model making. It is usually a basic drawing that I combine with collages to solidify ideas about texture, proportions and colour palette. This will eventually crystalize into a nearly to-scale cardboard model or drawing. As I work a lot with negative space and have to think about how and where things join and link up, armature wire also plays a pretty important role. I also keep a physical collection of textures and moulds, which may make little cameo appearances in pieces.

What message(s) do you want to convey through your art?

I seek to show glass as something that is resilient and unexpected and hope to challenge all preconceptions that a viewer may have. Formally exploring the boundaries between object, ornament and sculpture, is something that continues to motivate me and guides how I think about abstraction at large. Fragility as a theme is also a quiet presence, from which my interest in negative space and opening up a form, or making it as porose as possible, stems, followed by working back into it and reinforcing it with the torch work. The history of pâte-de-verre as a medium in and of itself also plays role.

Where the French revivalists and Art Noveau were glorifying and beautifying nature, I am more interested in pushing it in the direction of the surreal or sci-fi but still heavily referencing organic forms. Fantasy, geology and folk art also influence my aesthetic greatly.

What is your favourite tool or piece of equipment and why?

For a while it has been a pack (five in total) of ‘third-hand’ angled and adjustable tweezers on a base. I had seen goldsmiths using these to hold small pieces of metal while they are being soldered. I have adapted the tweezers for glass rods and use them to hold the rods in place while I connect them with a hand torch through the pâte-de-verre.

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

It is not necessarily my favourite, but I am really excited by the ‘Suture’ pieces. They are fused borosilicate frit and rod, which is then brought out of the kiln and manipulated directly by the torch. Extra rod is then hot-joined to the frame of the fused piece and stitched back into itself to create these tapestry-like pieces. Working with borosilicate frit in this way was a big leap for me in my practice.

Where do you show and sell your work?

I aim to present at exhibitions and fairs in Europe that are glass relevant, but also at those for sculpture and jewellery more generally. This is important, especially as I am

located in a rural setting. Recently, with funding from the Alexander-Tutsek Foundation, I had the opportunity to show my newest body of work at Collect in London with Collect Open, the fair’s platform for pioneering and thought-provoking craft installations by individual artists. This was my first time exhibiting not only in London, but in the UK (and I hope that it won’t be the last time).

Soon I will be showing some new wearable pieces at Pistachios Gallery in Chicago, USA, which I am incredibly excited (and nervous) about. I also have a web shop and take commissions for wall pieces, but also more generally for projects that are kiln or flameworking related.

Where is your creative practice heading next?

I am interested in scaling up the borosilicate ‘Suture’ pieces and working with interior designers and lighting designers on more commercial or site-specific projects.

Find out more about Rebecca Tanda and her work via her website and follow her on Instagram.

Main feature image: ‘Embellish/overbear’ (2025) uses borosilicate and soda-lime glass. Techniques employed include pâte-de-verre, slumping and flame working and the piece measures 50 x 27 x 10cm. Photo courtesy of the artist.