Kersti Vaks (b. 1940) belongs to the generation of Estonian glass artists who began their artistic careers in the 1960-ies. Due to the lack of opportunities at that period to work with glass in Estonia she worked from 1967 to 1972 as a designer at the Byelorussian glass factory Neman, one of the largest in the then USSR.

After her return to Estonia in 1972 she started teaching at the department of glass of the Estonian Academy of Arts (then: State Art Institute of the Estonian SSR). Her ties with the factory continued and thanks to the artist-friendly atmosphere she was able to experiment and work out her own technique, combining lead crystal with sulfide glass. The outcome was complicated three-dimensional drawing, black and white threads of glass creating beautiful graphical worlds inside clear and milky white glass. Her use of colors remained modest, yet nuanced. Her beloved forms – elegant vases, sometimes ground and polished, and simple plates lent her the “canvas” to draw on and reveal the richness of graphical patterns. The inspiration most often has been taken from nature.

Among Estonian glass artists she stands out as one of the very few who have stayed true to blown and furnace-worked glass, although recently she has also sometimes turned to kiln-work as well.

Kersti Vaks’s works will be exhibited at the Finnish Glass Museum in Riihimäki from March 16 to April 24, 2007.