Submitted Work

Anna Boothe - USA

Lithobates catesbeianus / American Bullfrog

4 x 9 x 6     I’ve always been enamored with frogs and had an extensive frog “trinket” collection as a kid. When I was 12, a friend and began a stuffed animal frog business (albeit - not terribly successful). When my husband and I met, he was working for a documentary film company called “Bullfrog Films,” and now we live near a stream that is home to the real thing and has a burgeoning population of spring peepers that serenade us each April.

My version of the American bullfrog is rather psychedelic (as I find the colors more compelling than the standard greens and browns that most bullfrogs sport!) It is part of a series of similarly kiln-cast glass frogs that I initially sculpted for a man with a prodigious collection of the creatures. Each owes its unique patterning to the selective placement and fusing of cast murine in refractory molds. The frog form, from which the mold is made, is created via the lost wax casting process. The frog eyes were flameworked by paperweight artist Gordon Smith.
The other elements of the presentation – the waterlily, stylized box turtle shell and confetti-like blue disk are cast from glass frit.