The Studio
The Artists
Carole Perry & Don Carroll — making glass laugh in the Sonoran Desert since 1990.
Carole Perry & Don Carroll
Laughing Glass Studio is the desert workshop of glass artist Carole Perry and her husband Don Carroll. A native of southern Oregon, Carole set aside a successful career in computers to pursue glass full time — and has been shaping light in Cave Creek ever since.
Twenty-five years of “creative chaos” later, the studio designs custom dinnerware, vases, sculpture, glass poppies and giftware — work that's collected nationally and shown in galleries across the country. Every piece is one of a kind, custom designed for the person who'll live with it.
Carole has also given her time to the Sonoran Arts League, the Desert Foothills Land Trust, the Cave Creek Film & Arts Festival and the Arizona Glass Alliance — and in 2001 co-founded the Foothills Empty Bowls Project, benefitting the Foothills Food Bank.
The Technique
Weaving glass
Carole's signature Glass Tapestries are exactly what they sound like — fabric, woven from glass. There is nothing else quite like them.
Cut the cane
Each piece begins as fine glass threads — “cane.” More than 9,000 individual threads are cut and laid out, then “woven” by hand on the kiln shelf.
Fuse the weave
The woven threads are heated slowly to near 1,500°F — the temperature that triggers a delicate “tack” fusion, joining the strands while keeping the weave.
Shape the light
At the moment of fusion the glowing fabric is lifted from the kiln and shaped by hand — with no more than ten seconds before it cools and sets forever.