CU LT U R E
ArtFusion Studio owners Rick and Tracey Bewley
True Fusion Artists Rick and Tracey Bewley have followed their muse in glass that’s fused
and studio. Their recent work is a combination of fused glass techniques and other materials that represents a fusion of their talents, the couple said, including Tracey’s sense of design and Rick’s extensive experience creating with heavier materials. Here the Bewleys talk about how they met, what they make and who they are as artists. This conversation has been edited for clarity and for space.
BY L I L L I E- B E T H B R I N K M A N P H O T O S BY C H A R L I E N E U E N S C H WA N D E R
S T E P I N T O R IC K A N D T R AC E Y Bewley’s ArtFusion Studio in Oklahoma City, and you’ll find a magical mix of art and light in colorful works that start with fused glass. The Bewleys have been creating their mixed media magic since they started their business in 2003. Today, their HQ and studio is at NW 11th St. and Western Avenue; they work downstairs and live upstairs in a home they renovated and finished out themselves. While known for glass, The Bewleys are mixed-media artists that often use other materials to ground their glasswork. Their creations range from large-scale public art projects to commissioned work to smaller pieces that people can buy from them at festivals or their gallery 106
JUNE 2022
Tell me about your business and what you do. R ICK BE WLEY: So we are primarily fused glass artists. Our business consists of art for the sake of art, whether for festivals, our gallery, public or commissioned work. The weirder, the better. And then we do public art; it’s fun seeing your work in public. T R ACEY BE WLEY: Glass is our favorite medium or what we’re known for, but we frequently mix that with other materials. Steel, wood and acrylic are all other mediums we work with, as well.
What is fused glass? T R ACEY: Fused glass is a matter of cutting and working the glass while it’s cold, kind of like stained glass. You cut and break and lay it all on a flat pattern or design. Once the design is the way you like it, a stained glass artist would solder it together at this point with a metal framework to
hold the pieces together. What we do instead is take our design and put it in a kiln and melt all those pieces together. Every piece we work with starts as a flat panel that has been melted together. Obviously, not all of our pieces are flat. That just means everything that has any shape or form to it has been in the kiln at least two times — the first time to melt the components together, and the second time we put on top of a mold and cook it again. The different types of work we do are all at this point variations on the fused glass process. Kiln cast glass is the other type of glass work that we like to play with. Basically, the difference is that instead of just putting a couple of layers of glass in the kiln and melting it, coming back later and doing something else with it, we put a mold or dam up around it so that it’s thicker when it melts and it doesn’t spread out. It contains the shape or form that that we’re trying for. From there, we do what’s called cold-working, which is when you grind and polish or tile saw to work the glass when it isn’t hot. We never took any classes that involve these processes. Most of this is through Rick’s knowledge and experience with working with tools and equipment — R ICK: Granite and marble and other things. It’s a great example of our complementary skills, you know, her design sense and colors. And then viability to understand that if we make it thicker, I know how to work it once we get there. And then playing off of each other. T R ACEY: Right now, I’m trying to get all these pieces ready for the Oklahoma City Festival of the Arts. I’ve been making glass pieces, and he’s figuring out how to make them into a sculpture that makes it a finished piece.
