Athens Glass Artist Works to Perfect His Craft

Inside a makeshift studio in his parents’ garage in Athens, 33-year-old Quen Wallace carefully melts a rod of sage green glass in a bright flame.

“Glass is a very persistent teacher of patience,” he said. “You can’t rush anything. You have to wait for glass to melt. You have to wait for things to heat up slowly. You have to wait for things to cool down slowly.”

Quen’s specialty is lampworking, a form of glass art that uses a stationary torch to melt and shape glass rods or tubes. Many of his pieces draw inspiration from traditional Southern pottery initially created in Edgefield, South Carolina. He grew up with a particular piece in his childhood home that became the source of his inspiration.

“I couldn’t look away from the face,” he said. “It was terrifying, but I loved it at the same time.”

After serving in the Navy and later working in law enforcement, Quen returned to Georgia looking for distance from that part of his life and for a fresh start for himself and his daughters.

He worked with an artist at a side job who invited him into a studio, and that was when he decided he wanted to become a glass artist. At the beginning, however, he only observed.

 “I turned the torch on maybe three or four times,” he said. “Every other time I was just too nervous.”

Now, dozens of shelves hold rods of borosilicate glass, the same material used in laboratory equipment and oven-safe containers, alongside unfinished projects. Borosilicate glass, his chosen medium, is much more forgiving than other forms of glass. He can start and stop projects on his own timeline.

“There’s definitely days that I’m like, ‘Oh, today is not the day,’” he said. “It just depends which way the wind’s blowing.”

The art carries a personal touch, too. Each year on his middle daughter’s birthday, he makes her something from glass.

“She has a marble from her first birthday,” he said. “She has a cup from her second.”

Ultimately, the work has become its own form of therapy for him.

“It’s so much fun,” he said. “You get lost in watching what’s happening. Time passes like that.”

Lynsey Miller is a senior journalism major at the University of Georgia.