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Glass Act

Susie Zeitner Fuses Creativity and Collaboration with Unique Glass Art

Susie Zeitner is no stranger to melding of craft, art, and creativity. The glass artist based in Sisters has built a successful business around her curiosity and collaborative nature to create original fused glass lighting and architectural glass.  For each project, she has a similar approach: “If you can imagine it, you can create it,” she says, “You just have to figure out how.” Susie’s constructive and can-do mentality began in Eugene growing up as the oldest child with two creative parents, so perhaps says Susie, “I picked up those skills through osmosis.”

In the 1970s, what began as a scholarship to the Academy of Art in San Francisco led to training as a commercial illustrator, and a 28-year career in fashion illustration, and fashion photo direction.  The opportunity to be taught by practicing professionals was life changing. She founded her business Z Glass Act in 1998 with the encouragement of a growing number of clients and the desire to explore and learn more about glass arts.  A large residential commission, reoccurring orders from a Bend lighting showroom at the time, Design Lighting, and a move to Sisters where she and her husband were building a home and detached studio would also allow her vision to grow. Today, her studio equipment includes five kilns in total and each one has a distinctive purpose in her process.

She has developed precise and unique temperature schedules that allow her to create layered, textural, vibrantly-colored, one-of-a-kind, light fixtures.  Just one step might require three hours at 900 degrees or reach 1400 degrees Fahrenheit.  “The glass is very temperamental and the firing schedule needs to be precise at each stage,” she says. Molecular bonds are created between the layers of glass once they are fused together.  Minerals provide the color and texture via sprinkles called frits— bits of glass ground down to powders and various sizes.  Art meets science in each piece of artwork.

Today Z Glass Act is based from a live/work space in Sisters that is as innovative as her glass.  The mid-century design exemplifies the idea that a studio and home can meld seamlessly.  Natural light showcases her glass pieces throughout. Current projects include lighting, small and large format glass tiles, and yard sculpture. In 2019, Z Glass Act successfully installed 138 fixtures including sconces, hanging pendants and chandeliers at a commercial facility, “The Lodge in Sisters.” Her lighting is also a feature of the fine-dining experience at Jackalope Grill, downtown Bend.

As an artist she is constantly innovating and exploring, and the experiences of 2020 guided her to outdoor spaces where she has developed totems using mixed metals and bits of glass to create beacons of color within the landscape design.  Coming full circle, she has also found ways to return to her beginnings as an artist.  She is currently painting glass layers with powdered glass paints as she develops a whole new art form.  “Painting and drawing were a start for me,” she says. “I’m interested if I can return in a new way.”  Susie refers to herself as collaborative by nature.  “People crave artistic expression, and both a gift and a goal of mine is to work to inspire others thru producing art that involves their visions. It’s a win-win.”


Z Glass Act LLC

ZGlassAct.com
541.556.9068

HOUSE DETAILS:

+ Year Built: 2017

+ Home: 1,610 sq. ft. 

+ Studio: 869 sq. ft. 

+ Lot: .9 acres

+ Features: one bedroom with loft office and adjacent studio, spa bath with walk-in shower and soaking tub, half bath in studio, cedar/bat and board/rusted metal panel siding, water feature, pond.

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