By Heather Matthews
Staff Writer, Manchester Mirror

(Heather Matthews/Manchester Mirror)




(Heather Matthews/Manchester Mirror)




(Heather Matthews/Manchester Mirror)

The artwork of Susanna Ries is constantly changing.

The shifting height of the sun in the sky, clouds and passing shadows cause her stained glass pieces to shift through a range of tones from deep hues to warmly glowing ones and back.

That is why Ries enjoys the medium so much, she said.

“It’s almost magical the way the light will change its colors,” Ries said. “It changes as the day the day changes. It really has a life of its own. Well, with the help of the sun or a light bulb. There’s really no other medium that does that.”

Ries is among the featured artists in the East Colony Art Gallery’s August show, “Lights! Color! Summer!” Along with artist Sally Gordon Shea’s pastel’s of fruits, summer scenes and sky studies, Ries displays more than 15 original stained glass pieces, varying from small heart-shaped sun catchers, to vases, to abstract pieces and larger sun catchers with dragonflies, fruits and flowers imbedded in them.

Ries, 48, of Mont Vernon, got her start in stained glass when she moved in to a new home 12 years ago. She wanted to create a window for her front door, so she visited Renaissance Glass in Nashua under the impression she would be able to cut the glass and piece together the window herself. Owners Mark and Kathy Frank, urged her to take a beginners class before embarking on larger projects. But the simple ambition turned into a larger passion.

“I just got hooked right there right from that first class,” Ries said.

Before discovering stained glass, Ries mainly focused on acrylic painting. She received an art degree at Colby Sawyer College in New London, where she concentrated on drawing, painting and photography.

Creating art was primarily about color and stained glass instantly appealed to that sense and more. Along with the changing colors, Ries said she loves the different types of glass.

“There are so many beautiful, beautiful glasses,” she said. “I’m inspired because there are some textures of glass. There’s bubbly glass and glass with swirls. It’s really wild the different glass you can get.”

Her favorite is Chicago Art Glass, with swirls of color and different textures.

“One side looks completely different from the other,” she said. “It’s just gorgeous.”

Ries draws many of her ideas from Nature, as well as the nature of the medium.

“I’m a gardener – a very avid gardener,” she said. “I draw a lot of inspiration from flowers. I also venture into the abstract. You can have fun with glass because there are a lot of funky varieties.”

For the display at East Colony, Ries has strayed from her traditional window hangings and began to create three-dimensional pieces for variety. However, Ries’s favorite creations involve butterflies because she said she relates to the winged insect.

“Butterflies are free spirits,” she said. “I like to think I am a free spirit. It always goes back to butterflies. Whenever I am not feeling inspired or working on something, I go back to the butterflies.”

With the conclusion of her show at East Gallery at the end of the month, Ries plans on moving into more fall-themed pieces and anything else she feels inspired to create.

“I’ll work on whatever the mood calls for,” she said. “Maybe another butterfly piece will crop up.”

In the future, inspired by her recent vase creations, Ries hopes to expand her glass work to kiln-formed, or fused, glass.

“I’d love to be able to make plates, trays and platters,” she said. “I could use a lot of the designs I have now.”

Ries has had work displayed at East Colony for three years and has just become a local juried artist with the League of New Hampshire Craftsmen. Her summer-themed work will be on display at East Colony throughout the remained of the month, with an opening reception on Aug.18 from 4 to 8 p.m. at the gallery. The pieces at East Colony are constantly changing. In November East Colony will host a jazz themed exhibition.