These are heirloom quality glass sculptures that will be treasured by your family for generations. The lead crystal rhubarb leaf looks absolutely lifelike on both the back and front sides. It makes an ideal display dish for the included life sized glass fruit sculpture collection. They all look so real you'll have to touch them to be sure, and you must keep them away from children to prevent them from being eaten by accident.

The grouping in this picture includes all of the following glass sculptures:
1 glass rhubarb leaf;
11 glass ripe blackberries;
2 glass unripe blackberries.
All the pieces are separate so you may rearrange them in the leaf or remove them as you like.

This glass leaf is about 7 inches across and about 7.5 inches long from the tip of the leaf to the tip of the pink stem. It is signed and dated on the bottom. All of the included glass blackberries are life-sized, as you would expect to pick in the garden or find in the supermarket - about 1 inch (25mm) high. They are fully ripe with no red cells left. Each still has the little plug that was left inside when it was picked. Almost nothing in nature is perfectly round, smooth or even, so I deliberately avoid making my glass sculptures too perfect. Your rhubarb leaf may include imperfections such as a chewed spot along the edge where bugs have eaten it. The berries may be slightly lopsided or have spots or other imperfections just as you might find in nature. This makes each piece unique and makes them look much more real.

I make each of these glass rhubarb leaves one at a time via the Pate de Verre method using lead crystal. I spend many hours in carefully perfecting the surface of each mold and placing in the colored lead crystal powders. I fire the mold to 1600 degrees Fahrenheit to cast the powder into a single, solid piece of glass. After the glass cools, I spend many more hours cleaning away the mold material, smoothing the edges and polishing all of the surfaces. To see the front and back sides of the rhubarb leaf by itself, click HERE.

The glass blackberries are each made one at a time using the lampwork process. This means that I melt colored glass rods in the flame of the torch, shaping them with gravity, surface tension and simple tools. Every drupelet (cell) is individually applied over the surface of the fruit in a painstaking process. Since no molds are used in this process, every berry is different.

Elizabeth Johnson Art Glass, LLC