Bowled Over by Glass Art

Fazzoletto bowls became a specialty of Murano glassmakers during the 1950s and were made by companies such as Venini. Fazzoletto translates to “handkerchief” in Italian, and the wavy rim resembles a fluttering, falling handkerchief. WMODA has a fine example by Lino Tagliapietra, who collaborated with Chihuly during his early visits to Murano. Chihuly made the style famous with his monumental Macchia forms with undulating rims, named after the Italian word for smear or spot to describe his impressionistic color effects.

Chelsea Rousso is an interdisciplinary artist, educator, lecturer and author. She began her career as a fashion designer in New York and began working with WMODA ten years ago while teaching fashion at the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale. She rekindled her early art practice in studio glass art, specializing in kiln-formed fused glass. Inspired by Chihuly and other glass masters represented at WMODA, she began experimenting with fused glass methods to make blown glass forms.

Chelsea Rousso Free Form Table Center
Chelsea Rousso Fazzoletto Bowl
Chelsea Rousso Broward Cultural Division
Fashion Forward Book by Chelsea Rousso
Exhibition of Chelsea Rousso's Draped Glass Bowls

Chelsea has developed many different styles of draped Fazzoletto-style bowls and was commissioned by Broward Cultural Division to make a collection of unique fused glass table centers for their State of the Arts address in 2023. Chelsea’s free-form style uses strips and pieces of colorful glass, which can be arranged on clear glass to create a fabulous Fazzoletto-style bowl or draped to create an abstract table center. Some of Chelsea’s latest designs are available for sale in the Studio Collection Museum Shop at WMODA.