Melanie Rowe

Leslie Rowe-Israelson

Megan Parks

3 SISTERS COLLABORATION

By Melanie Rowe

My name is Melanie Rowe and I am one of 3 sisters. My twin sister, Leslie Rowe-Israelson, and I have been exploring and creating in glass for almost 30 years. I proudly introduce our older sister, Megan Parks, to our journey. Our journey in glass began in the early 1970s while living in the Canadian Rockies. For about 10 years, Leslie and I juggled our time between skiing and stained glass, constantly being stimulated by our surroundings. In the mid eighties we began to add more 3 dimensional elements into our stained glass art, thus, the kiln-formed glass adventure began. We were living in Jasper National Park at the time and our Studio was an old ice plant (turned warm) in the industrial area of town. At that time, there were no schools in Canada that were offering courses in kiln formed glass, so we ventured down to Camp Colton (a warm glass school) in Oregon. We also attended Pilchuck Glass School, which is a magical, international glass school on the top of a mountain in Washington state. It changed our lives and the way we incorporate our art.

For the next ten years we would return to Pilchuck as students, then TA's, and then as instructors in mold making for kiln forming glass. We are returning the gift of knowledge that we received for so many years. Our glass art and knowledge in the medium has led us to travel to many wonderful places in the world and enabled us to either work beside renowned artists and even teach some of them.