It's crystal clear why Dartmouth local makes glass art

When Dartmouth local Jackie Hopp makes her pieces of glass art, she starts with a circle of clear glass. She then chooses a pattern, picking out the colors and cutting out the shapes. 

She starts with a rectangle, runs a blade across the glass and presses the cut with pliers into the shape she wants — in this case, petals and a flower center. 

Once she has the pattern in place, she covers the clear glass circle in glue and uses ground glass to cover the circle and create a colorful background. After this, she lays the pattern back on top and waits for the kiln to be full of glass art to start the kiln and finish the piece.

Hopp started making glass art about 10 years ago on a whim. Ever since, her art has only grown in quantity and quality. 

When her son and his wife had their twins, they were struggling with balancing all they needed to do. Hopp retired and traveled down to Virginia for a year to help babysit. They suggested while she was there, she should try something fun and take a class.

After her son and his wife suggested that she try something fun, she signed up for a glass fusing class, and realized she loved it. She continued to take classes and honing her skills and one day she saw the studio was selling an old kiln. 

“I called my husband, because he was home [in Massachusetts] and I said, ‘hey, I’m bringing home a kiln, and get ready,’” said Hopp, “And that’s how it all started.”

When she got back to Dartmouth, she started taking more and more classes about glass art at Blackstone River College and online. She started learning a very specialized skill, called “murrini”, which involves pulling glass layered over a stencil to create small glass beads. This uses a specialized kiln called a “virtigraph kiln” as it can also pull thin rods of glass called vitrigraphs. 

“I learned this and look, my whole life has changed because of that,” she said. 

Hopp makes everything from the fan-favorite “pocket hearts” and nightlights, to tiles and picture frames for her friends and family. 

While she had initially been giving and selling pieces to friends and family, Hopp’s husband   eventually suggested that she could sell them as she was making so many pieces. At her first craft fair, she met another vendor, Brenda, who helped her learn how and where to vend.

“I started really producing because I was just having fun,” Hopp explained.

Hopp doesn’t just sell her finished pieces — she has started making and selling murrini and canes, which are sticks of uncut murrini, on Etsy to other glass artists. She hopes to use the next year to improve her murrini skills.  

Her pocket hearts are one of her favorites, as she discovered people use her hearts to tell stories. 

“I should call them ‘story hearts’ because it’s interesting how many people have a story associated with what they pick up,” Hopp said. “It’s fun to hear, and then it just makes me feel good that I’m a part of these lives.”

Hopp has found people will stand and look through the hearts to find the perfect one, and said she loves how people will tell her the stories of why. 

She stated many people will buy angels to place on loved ones graves, or to give to someone who is grieving to help them. 

Hopp makes a large variety of designs, such as bees, flowers, angels, and music notes and uses scraps from other projects to avoid any waste and make abstract and colorful designs that she loves. 

Her other most popular items are her nightlights. She says the nightlights cover the cost of attending markets, and that she almost sells out every time. She makes a variety of designs, including holiday pieces like snowmen and Christmas trees. 

For holidays, she makes ornaments and seasonally themed goods including cocktail stirrers, paper weights and dishes. 

But she doesn’t make pieces alone, with her family helping and supporting her. She started teaching her grandchildren, who are preteen and teens, how to make glass art. She has two daughters who live nearby, and their children will come over to play with the glass. 

Hopp’s daughters and husband help her with markets and vending when she’s tired or double booked. She has started teaching one of her daughters the rare art of using the vitrigraph kiln. 

One of her grandsons is a photographer, and asked her to make him a photo frame, which he drew and designed  himself, with specific forms of glass art and elements of design.

One of her granddaughters made sconces for her parent’s fireplaces, and another one of her grandsons plays with fusing geometric shapes. 

She said glass art brings her closer to her grandchildren and allows them to get to know each other.

“The kids, the grandkids, come over and the first thing they do is ‘Can I do a glass project Gammy?’” Hopp said, “So they come down here and they do all kinds of projects.”

She extends her love of art beyond her family to neighborhood kids who come over and create gifts for their families with her help. 

To show how she goes about making her art, she invited reporter Kat Sheridan to make their own. 

There are two types of glass fusing. There is full fusing, which fully melts the glass together and creates a smooth texture. Then there is a tack fuse, which partially melts the glass together and leaves texture. She uses both in the creation of her nightlights.  

The kiln bakes between 1,400 degrees and 1,500 degrees. She waits until the kiln is completely filled to run it to prevent waste. After it runs for 18 to over 20 hours, the kiln has to cool down to at least 150 degrees. 

She saves all the “waste” from the pieces: pieces she cut off, the ends of vitrigraph pulls and failed murrini or art. She uses all of it to make new pieces like her pocket hearts. 

“None of this is wasted, it all gets used,” she explained. 

For pieces like pocket hearts and bowls, she has molds that she puts the glass on, and allows the molds to shape the melting glass. 

She also offers cremation memorialization services. People can send her some of a loved one's ashes, and she will have it embedded in a glass art of their choice. 

She also has personal projects in the works, including tiles her friend plans to use as a backsplash in her kitchen. Hopp is planning to make magnetic tiles so she can have seasonal backsplashes in her home. 

“It’s just fun … I’m having a good time,” Hopp said.