Bryn's Gallery ~ About Me

"Chance favors the prepared mind." ~ Louis Pasteur

Glass Necklaces/Pendants

Glass Bracelets

Glass Decor

Glass Windchimes

It was many decades between my glass epiphany and actually being able to pursue the dream. By the time I got to it, I’d worked with glass in my mind for a considerable time.

I was having way too much success in the music business to walk away and it was 24/7, so glass had to wait until I was done creating rockstars. Besides, there was a lot of preparation leading me on. Early on I’d taken a whole slew of industrial arts classes in college, later adding welding and kiln-fired pottery classes. I’d long collected glass in many styles and was inspired by museum exhibits on glass and mineral specimens (nature’s glass work).

But it was seeing faceted glass sculptures by Ken Raines at the Contemporary Crafts Fair in Santa Monica that told me some day I would focus on glass full time. His faceted work was my first exposure to dichroic glass.

In the Sixties I was consumed by rock n roll and spent nearly 40 odd years working on the front lines of the music biz. I specialized in crisis management and enjoyed the challenge of handling difficult recording artists. I was the senior publicity executive at Elektra/Asylum, Capitol, Geffen and DreamWorks Records. And as independent public relations and publicity counsel, I worked directly for the likes of Nelly Furtado, Queen, Motley Crue, Velvet Revolver, Guns n Roses, Aerosmith and Red Hot Chili Peppers, to cite a few. (My pre-glass bio is at www.bridenthal-associates.com.)

As you can imagine, I spent a lot of time on red carpets and at photo and video shoots all over the world, working with stylists and fashion editors, picking up ideas for dramatic jewelry that I wanted to wear.

Thanks to the internet, in 2005 my songwriter/musician husband and I were able to leave the Los Angeles-Manhattan axis for Atascadero in the Central California Coast Wine Country, surrounded by wildlife, vineyards and oak trees. In 2009 I finally retired from the music biz and enrolled in the glass program at Cal Poly. I followed that up with classes at Castle Glass in San Luis Obispo and studied with Kent Lauer in Los Angeles. Skills like tying a Chinese slip knot I picked up on the web.

Around this time my always-talented sister, Sher Roberts, and I joined forces to launch our glass lives with the Open Studios Art Tour held county wide each fall. We were subsequently asked to participate in the Festival of the Arts in Paso Robles, Day in the Shade in Templeton and at the Morro Bay art gallery. Our glass work is now featured at The Gallery at the Network in SLO and the Studios on the Park in Paso.

My signature is wearable art -- bold dichroic glass jewelry -- but I also love making wind chimes out of intensely colored fused glass, and sturdy bottle glass. And there’s usually a bit of dichroic glass in my fused glass bowls and plates.

I love the challenge, the technology, and most of all, the reflected light from a coldworked facet. It gives the impression of fire caught in the glass. I even love the tedium of coldworking glass; I find it to be a very Zen process.

Immersing yourself in something you have passion for is the ultimate joy. And doing it in concert with someone you love and trust (like my sister), is the pinnacle of pleasure.

So we just had to be 2sisters glass!!

Bryn Bridenthal

"You can do ANYTHING you want if you want to do it badly enough." ~ Our Dad