Awaiting Spring - Pale Blue by Emma Varga

Emma Varga creates images inside glass. In Awaiting Spring -- Pale Blue, dozens of delicate blue and violet blossoms rise through a thick transparent slab, their stems multiplying and overlapping as though a living plant has somehow been suspended in water -- or frozen in time. Tiny bubbles scattered throughout the glass heighten the sense of an underwater world.

Varga developed an extraordinarily labor-intensive multiple-layer fusing technique in which thousands of small glass elements are cut, assembled, and fired in stages to construct three-dimensional imagery within transparent glass. Born in the former Yugoslavia, she worked in the glass industry for two decades before settling in Sydney, Australia, where the colors and landscapes of her new home transformed her artistic practice. Part of Varga's environmentally inspired Blue World series, Awaiting Spring is both beautiful and quietly urgent: an intimate ecosystem rendered in a material that can preserve a moment seemingly forever.

Dimensions (in. WxHxD): 2 x 15 x 10

Learn more about the artist at www.instagram.com/emmavargaglassstudio.

The Live Auction will take place Sep. 18 at 8pm ET. Bid live at the event, place bids online via Live Auctioneers, or submit absentee bids by contacting Heather McElwee at 412-365-2145 or heather@pittsburghglasscenter.org.