Debra Powell Artist Bio

Debra’s love of glass art began with learning stained glass techniques in 1981 while living in New York. After returning to Vancouver in 1983, she attended Pilchuck (the now famous glass school created by glass blower, Dale Chihuly). It was there she was introduced to fused glass by Richard Lalonde (a pioneer in the art form). Debra then studied, created and taught fused glass ended up in storage for the next 20 years. In 2007 she was finally able to have a studio outside of Kamloops at Paul Lake. It was such a thrill for her to have a working studio again!

She then moved to Vancouver where she had to downsize her studio but still loves to create and teach an occassional class.

Debra loves the interaction between light and glass and the transitions from solid to molten and back. She creates jewelry, functional objects and pure glass “art” that she hopes inspires observers to feel the “light” when they look at it or hold it. The medium can be very challenging to work with and Debra views these mistakes as design opportunities. She loves to turn disasters into a higher level object of beauty.