Lou Ropner – Glass Artist

Lou Ropner in her studio (c) David Drake

I was born in London during the 1960’s, growing up there before living in various villages around London’s county borders.

Over the next decades I had many jobs. I was a nanny, writer and illustrator and a gardener, until I eventually moved out of London.  I travelled, crossed the Atlantic on a motorsailer and returned via New York. In fact, I travelled on and off for three years.

I was really yearning for a profession I would be good at and enjoy, one to be passionate about. One day, I heard a voice saying to me “make mosaics”.

Within a year I kept meeting mosaic artists and was even gifted a large amount of glass when I left London after my last job ended. I finally made my first mosaic in North Yorkshire at the age of forty.

It took a while to develop this particular talent to the level that I could say to people that my hobby had become my profession. I am truly passionate about glass. Its colour, vibrancy and as the basis of my creative work. The glass I most love to use is the bright, intensely coloured Dichroic glass. Quite rare to use it unfused, it’s very expensive but so worth it. All the glass I use is opaque and either has an iridescent or opalescent sheen which is so effective and attractive in a mosaic.

With this glass I can make mosaics on tile or slate for the garden, on silver plate and metal for jewellery and on wood for the home. The work I especially enjoy and value is to make crosses for churches and private homes.

I now work from my small home studio on the edge of Malmesbury. It is twenty years since I first heard the words “make mosaics” and the time has flown by. I must be having fun!

https://www.louropnermosaics.com