Marybeth Ting, Verre Églomisé Artist

Some crafts find you before you know their name. it began in a Baroque church—gold catching light from windows she was too young to understand. The impression stayed. Years later, the technique had a name: verre églomisé. A practice originating in pre-Roman glassmaking, refined through 18th-century France, carried forward by hands across centuries. In 2005, after relocating to Toronto, it reached hers. She learned from the material directly—no institution, no inherited atelier, just the craft and what it demanded.

What emerged over two decades is work distinguished by technical approaches most gilders avoid: manipulating how gold leaf responds to burnishing and adhesive application to create surfaces that shift from mirror-bright to matte opacity, texture that fragments reflection rather than perfecting it; working with high-karat gold, palladium, and silver in layered combinations that exploit each metal's distinct optical properties; and developing an aesthetic vocabulary rooted in organic textures, geometric and curvilinear sweeps, and ornamental structure as architectural language rather than decorative supplement. Every panel is executed entirely by her hands.
The tools have not changed—gold leaf, gilder's cushion, knife, tip. The gestures she uses today are the same ones used centuries ago. What changes is what the technique is asked to express: surfaces with depth where there should be flatness, glass that holds light rather than simply reflecting it, work made to inhabit architecture, not decorate it. Each piece carries the weight of the centuries that shaped the technique. What she's building is a body of work that expands what verre églomisé can be. A living practice, still moving. Toronto, 2005. A practice resumed.

Studio Operations

Miguel Ting manages project coordination, client communication, and logistics — allowing Marybeth to maintain complete focus on the 40–80 hours of hand-gilding each panel requires. Initial consultations include both artist and studio director. Creative decisions are collaborative. Production updates and installation coordination are handled by Miguel, preserving Marybeth's uninterrupted time at the bench.