Always busy creating, Elise Ordorica strives to reflect in her art the magnificence of the natural world. Glass is her primary material because it so beautifully embodies light and color; working with the luminosity of glass is like molding, sculpting, even painting with light. She attempts to capture the beauty of nature’s simple but spectacular complexity and to deepen her love and understanding of the natural world; making art is for Elise both celebration and solace.
In her work, Elise uses sheets of glass, which she hand cuts into the final shapes. For vibrant color, she uses glass frits and powders, which she layers and sifts together either on their own or onto sheet glass, and then often embeds metal components. These pieces are placed into a kiln to be heated into their final shapes. Some of the pieces are then hand polished and some are re-worked and re-fired, sometimes multiple times to achieve the final effect. In creating her recent pieces, Elise has been making multiples of one shape, using color gradation and scaling for size.
After graduating in 2000 from Alfred University, where she studied Art and Design, Elise Ordorica worked at the Pilchuck Glass School and also managed Chappell Gallery, a renowned contemporary glass sculpture gallery in Boston. Introduced to the world of high-end contemporary glass sculpture, particularly Japanese, Australian, and Czech glass, she discovered the endless possibilities of working with this amazing material. In 2005, Elise met Dorothy Lenehan, protégé to Narcissus Quagliata and owner of Lenehan Glass, an architectural glass firm in Oakland, CA. Elise worked alongside Dorothy as the studio manager and fabricator. Together, and with help from others, they created one-of-a-kind glass doors, countertops, fountains, public art pieces, and large scale private pieces. The most impressive is a glass mural that consists of 390 panels, wrapping three sides of a building located in the SOMA district of San Francisco. In 2009, Elise was juried into a public art certification program in the San Francisco Bay Area. In 2015, she began teaching glass fusing classes at the Bay Area Glass Institute in San Jose, CA. And at about the same time, she began collaborating with architect Bill Gould, owner of Artik Art and Architecture in San Jose. Elise continues to work on her own sculptural pieces, jewelry and architectural commissions.
In her work, Elise uses sheets of glass, which she hand cuts into the final shapes. For vibrant color, she uses glass frits and powders, which she layers and sifts together either on their own or onto sheet glass, and then often embeds metal components. These pieces are placed into a kiln to be heated into their final shapes. Some of the pieces are then hand polished and some are re-worked and re-fired, sometimes multiple times to achieve the final effect. In creating her recent pieces, Elise has been making multiples of one shape, using color gradation and scaling for size.
After graduating in 2000 from Alfred University, where she studied Art and Design, Elise Ordorica worked at the Pilchuck Glass School and also managed Chappell Gallery, a renowned contemporary glass sculpture gallery in Boston. Introduced to the world of high-end contemporary glass sculpture, particularly Japanese, Australian, and Czech glass, she discovered the endless possibilities of working with this amazing material. In 2005, Elise met Dorothy Lenehan, protégé to Narcissus Quagliata and owner of Lenehan Glass, an architectural glass firm in Oakland, CA. Elise worked alongside Dorothy as the studio manager and fabricator. Together, and with help from others, they created one-of-a-kind glass doors, countertops, fountains, public art pieces, and large scale private pieces. The most impressive is a glass mural that consists of 390 panels, wrapping three sides of a building located in the SOMA district of San Francisco. In 2009, Elise was juried into a public art certification program in the San Francisco Bay Area. In 2015, she began teaching glass fusing classes at the Bay Area Glass Institute in San Jose, CA. And at about the same time, she began collaborating with architect Bill Gould, owner of Artik Art and Architecture in San Jose. Elise continues to work on her own sculptural pieces, jewelry and architectural commissions.
