ELIZABETH LYONS

Trained as a sculptor, Elizabeth Lyons is a glassblower who creates chandeliers that resemble branches full of blooming cherry blossoms and groupings of vessels that play with combinations of colors inspired by succulent plants, among other types of objects. Based in Rochester, New York, Lyons approaches the craft of glassblowing from the perspective of deconstructing an object and then reconstructing it from glass. "Glass is totally seductive, the perfect medium with a chameleonic nature that allows it to mimic a range of other materials," she says. Glass, she notes, is a liquid that freezes in its moment of transformation. "The beauty of glass lies in its rawness," Lyons says.

As the founder and director of More Fire Glass Studio, Lyons blows her glass using silica—more commonly known as sand—heated up in a furnace and shaped using various tools, including wooden paddles and wet newspaper. The process, which is thousands of years old, requires extreme concentration and devotion. Lyons objects are both precious and meant to live with every day. "In this time of paring down and living a more minimal existence, it is interesting to create something beautiful and useful at the same time," she says.