Elise Ordorica is always creating, striving to reflect the beauty in life. She is drawn to using glass as a material, because it represents light and color. For her it is a way of molding, sculpting and even painting with light. Elise strives to conserve the beauty of simple complexity, she is driven to create pieces inspired by everyday experiences. She has the desire to create work that depicts her love and admiration for our natural world, which deepens her understanding of life allowing celebration, and solace when needed. Elise craves to be outside, in the ocean, in a field surrounded by wildflowers, or in the forest, listening to sounds. To touch, to smell, to be engulfed by these simple pleasures is the ultimate experience. When the sculpture reflects these feelings, and emotions, there is the experience of true fulfillment.
Elise uses sheets of glass, which she hand cuts into the final shape. For color, she uses mostly glass frits and powders, which she layers and sifts together, onto the sheet glass. These pieces get placed into a kiln to be heated into their final shape, often times embedding metal components. Some of the pieces get hand polished and some are re-worked and re-fired, sometimes multiple times to achieve the final design. In creating more recent pieces, Elise has been using multiples of one shape, incorporating scaling of size and color gradation.
Elise Ordorica graduated from Alfred University in 2000, where she studied Art and Design. After graduating she worked at the Pilchuck Glass School, and managed Chappell Gallery, a top contemporary glass sculpture gallery in Boston, Ma. Introduced to the world of high end Contemporary Glass Sculpture, specifically Japanese, Australian, and Czech Glass. She found, what was possible with this amazing material, seemed endless. In 2005, Elise met Dorothy Lenehan, protégé to Narcissus Quagliata, and owner of Lenehan Glass, a small 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 largest being, a 390 panel glass mural, that wraps three sides of a Building in the SOMA district of San Francisco, CA. In 2009 Elise was juried into a Public Art certification program in the Bay Area, CA. In 2015 she began teaching glass fusing classes at the Bay Area Glass Institute. Recently, she has been Collaborating with Bill Gould, owner of Artik Art and Architecture in San Jose, CA.
Elise uses sheets of glass, which she hand cuts into the final shape. For color, she uses mostly glass frits and powders, which she layers and sifts together, onto the sheet glass. These pieces get placed into a kiln to be heated into their final shape, often times embedding metal components. Some of the pieces get hand polished and some are re-worked and re-fired, sometimes multiple times to achieve the final design. In creating more recent pieces, Elise has been using multiples of one shape, incorporating scaling of size and color gradation.
Elise Ordorica graduated from Alfred University in 2000, where she studied Art and Design. After graduating she worked at the Pilchuck Glass School, and managed Chappell Gallery, a top contemporary glass sculpture gallery in Boston, Ma. Introduced to the world of high end Contemporary Glass Sculpture, specifically Japanese, Australian, and Czech Glass. She found, what was possible with this amazing material, seemed endless. In 2005, Elise met Dorothy Lenehan, protégé to Narcissus Quagliata, and owner of Lenehan Glass, a small 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 largest being, a 390 panel glass mural, that wraps three sides of a Building in the SOMA district of San Francisco, CA. In 2009 Elise was juried into a Public Art certification program in the Bay Area, CA. In 2015 she began teaching glass fusing classes at the Bay Area Glass Institute. Recently, she has been Collaborating with Bill Gould, owner of Artik Art and Architecture in San Jose, CA.
