“Glass is alive.”
It shifts, breathes, and transforms. It moves from solid to liquid and back again, capturing light, memory, and time within its structure. For glass artisan Anusch, glass is more than a medium. It’s a teacher, a mirror and a collaborator. Living between Italy and Belgium, she incorporates both the traditional techniques and contemporary life into each piece, giving them a soul.
AnuschB is a glass artist and jewellery designer based near Brussels, and in Murano. She is originally from Côte d’Ivoire. Her passion for beads began with African trade beads and led her to study gemology (HRD Antwerp) and Precious Metal Clay. In 2005, she discovered lampwork glass and has since trained with leading artists like Jean-Pierre Baquère and Kristina Logan. A member of l’Association des Perliers d’Art de France, Anusch blends tradition and innovation to create expressive, light-filled glass jewelry.
The Magic of Glass
“To work with glass,” she says, “is to enter into a conversation with heat and intuition.” Whether at 800°C at the torch or over 1200°C in a casting kiln, the process demands attention and a calm headspace. You cannot drift. “It’s dangerous – you must be fully present. That’s what makes it so meditative. When I work with glass, everything else disappears.”
Glass offers infinite possibilities. It is transparent or opaque, colourless yet powerful, delicate but enduring. “Glass has a personality. It reacts. You try to control it, but you have to listen. Glass has its own way. It can be pointy or soft, flowing or structured. You guide it, but it also surprises you.”
During cancer, glass became a metaphor of her experience – fragile yet resilient and ultimately transformed by fire. When time collapsed into the uncertainty of treatments, “life shrank… the world felt different, smaller.” Yet even then, she continued to hold on to the torch. “I made 10 beads a day for nearly a year, each one a breath, a way to mark time.”
On February 17, 2024, which is her partner’s birthday, she began a project: ten beads a day, every day, until the anniversary of my surgery. It was an act of quiet resistance, a ritual of love, repetition, and healing. “Each bead was like a breath. I didn’t overthink it. I just sat down and made them.” That daily rhythm , 3,510 beads in total to be precise, became both an anchor and lifeline, a way to reclaim time, to transform pain into presence.
Glass didn’t just reflect what she was going through, it helped her rebuild herself from the inside out. “I realised this craft isn’t just part of me. It is me. It’s my breath, my vital drive.”
The Life Within the Material
Anusch works across nearly every glassmaking technique:
Torchwork : This is her most intimate technique, the one she is the master of. Using a bench torch and glass rods, she shapes molten glass into beads and sculptures.
Glass Blowing: Done at higher temperatures, this technique involves inflating molten glass into hollow forms using a blowpipe. “It requires clarity, you need to know where you’re going. It’s physically intense, and I often collaborate with other artists for larger blown pieces.”
Kiln Forming / Fusing / Pâte de Verre: Here, sheets of glass, blocks or powdered or crushed glass are placed in moulds and fired in a kiln. The pâte de verre technique allows for incredibly delicate textures. “I took a workshop in Italy that changed everything, it was a luminous moment.”
Casting (Sand Casting): Hot, molten glass is poured into prepared sand moulds. This is an intense, intuitive process. “I cast only once a year and the final preparations happen last minute. What comes out is often a surprise, and as it cools slowly over two days, I don’t see the final form until then.”
Photosensitive printing: Using light-reactive chemicals and photography, she embeds images and textures directly into the surface of the glass. “It allows me to tell stories in layers.”
She collaborates with other likeminded artisans when it comes to techniques she isn’t well versed with. For example, she collaborates with artisans in Venice when it comes to engraving. For her casting pieces she works with metal artisans to add structure or contrast. “Each piece tells me what it needs. I choose collaborators based on the soul of the work. It’s not just technicality but sensibility as well.”
What sets glass apart, she says, is its relationship with light. “A glass sculpture is never the same twice. It changes throughout the day. The way light moves through it makes it feel alive. You’re living with something that evolves. It has a presence.”
This quality of presence makes glass more than decorative. It’s dynamic. Transformative. “When someone brings a piece into their home, it becomes a quiet companion. It reflects something back.”
There’s a reason glass techniques have been protected, even kept secret in places like Venice. “To melt glass with a flame, at your own desk, with a small kiln, it’s magic. You don’t need a giant studio. You need time, and care.”
A Craft of Mastery and Intuition
Glassmaking is a slow craft. It takes time to learn, often ten years or more to truly master the techniques. But it offers instant joy. “The first time a beginner melts glass and forms a bead, there’s this waaah-ha moment. Even now, I look at pieces I made 20 years ago and feel proud. They’re imperfect, but they’re mine.”
From tiny beads to sculptures, her work evolves across scales. For more than 15 years now, she’s been experimenting with flat beads and modular forms, exploring how repetition and rhythm can transform jewelry into installation.
And while she continues to teach, she notices how many of her students are navigating personal disruption, and are indirectly seeking healing. “Working with your hands, making something from nothing – it’s powerful. It grounds you. Glass brings people back to themselves. ”
Presence, Not Perfection
Ultimately, glass is about presence. “Whether I’m at the torch or watching a casting cool, I’m in a relationship, with the material, the process, the moment. Glass teaches me to be here.”
Glass isn’t static. It records motion, holds breath, transmits light. It remembers heat and pressure. And in the hands of the maker, it becomes something more than beautiful, it becomes alive.
Chiarra Gianina Fernandes
