I started life as a knitwear designer, and after many years of travelling around the world for work, I ended up with my own import company. About 20 years ago, I was introduced to ceramics by a friend, for some ‘me’ time. It opened a door into another, more creative world and there I learnt that you can also do glass in a kiln (and not just blow it) and I haven’t looked back!

Glass is an amazing medium. It allows light to play such a wonderful extra dimensional part, giving both transparency and depth to a sculpture, as though an opening into an alternative universe of just light and shadows. I fell in love with glass and haven’t stopped experimenting with it since. Every glass piece is an exciting challenge, a partnership between me and the glass, as it works its own magic in the kiln: I use the fusing glass technique to create sculptural panels from one off moulds of ceramic fibre, which have a textile, flowing quality. In my fused vessels, I can express my previous textile background and love of patterns. Sand casting glass gives me a deeper, more mysterious alchemic medium to pour, hot, into layers, creating more primitive, chunkier, sculptural pieces that can include gorgeous blue bubbles. Have a look at my website www.teresachlapowski.co.uk to see how it’s done.

I have taken many master classes in different glass techniques (with Colin Reid and Max Jacquard to name a few) and now have my own kiln (for fusing) in my studio at home.

My husband’s love of photography meant I had to take that it up too, but being more sculptural in all that I see, I can’t leave anything alone, so I play on Photoshop to create imaginary landscapes with pixels, turning our world into something more magical. I now sell these as limited edition prints, though sometimes they end up in my glass! Now I've added Cyanotype sun prints, using motifs from my glass and allowing the sun to 'develop' the images.

But it seems my primary interest is just being creative, in any medium, whether it’s glass, photography, ceramics or a combination of all of them (see my Instagram and Facebook posts). I love colour, especially blues and turquoises, but also bright whacky colours. I can be inspired by the bare tree branches against an indigo night sky just as much as wiggly boat reflections in a canal. Texture, textiles, the human form, archaeology, geology, the sea, glaciers and ice, even shadows on a sunny day, they all inspire me. I try to capture emotions or moments trapped in time, but am just as happy when the viewer can make them their own.

I have exhibited widely, including at the Mall Galleries (with SWA, RSMA and RMS), La Galeria in London (with East West Arts), Birmingham Society of Artists, Oxo Gallery (finalist with Chaiya Awards 2 years running), Greenwich Photographic Gallery and POSK Gallery Hammersmith.

I am a member of: Chelsea Art Society (won their Sculpture Prize in 2023), APA (association of Polish Artists in GB), CGS (Contemporary Glass Society), Just Glass Society, HVA (Hertfordshire Visual Arts) and IAL (exhibiting also in Japan). I take part in their various group exhibitions annually.

I welcome commissions so please feel free to contact me directly.

You can also buy my work at: www.mardleyburygallery.co.uk (Herts), www.aubergineart.co.uk (Wimbledon), the gallery at www.parndonmill.co.uk (Harlow), some of these galleries are also online, and www.bohaglass.co.uk for online sales only.