Glass and I

I vividly remember my first step into a glassmaking workshop and the unfamiliar scent of dry air heated by the flame. When I saw a glass rod transform under the glassmaker’s hands into a molten, malleable material, I knew that glass was my destiny. “This is what I want to do!” was all I said. My fourteen-year-old self was certain. The path to creating my own work, however, was far from straightforward.

I loved the craft, it fulfilled me, and it came naturally to me. The creative freedom that the Secondary School of Glassmaking in Železný Brod offered us in the 1990s was generous and laid the foundation for my later work. From my very first year of study, I had my own workshop, and later, my first commissions. I immediately spent the money I earned on materials and workshop equipment. My one square metre of paradise: a window, a table, a chair, a torch, and shelves filled with glass enamel.

The unpleasant awakening from the dream of great art came when I left the nurturing embrace of school and entered the everyday reality of a capitalist market economy. For the soul of a naïve young artist, it was a great disappointment. Immediately after graduating, I embarked on self-employment, but I soon realised that nobody was interested in my grand artistic creations, and that making a living from my work was nearly impossible for a young, unknown artist without the support of an established family tradition. But I refused to be discouraged. My body lived from producing commercial beads while my soul breathed through creation. My equipment was primitive, my glass cracked without annealing in a kiln, and I had to return to the same shape a hundred times. My ethereally fragile creations had no commercial value. I didn't care. I held my first solo exhibition at Hnízdo Gallery in Prague and continued burning my fingers in my desire to push the beautiful craft of glassmaking a little further. I continued dreaming of a future in which my creative work would support me.

After 2000, my life took a rapid turn when I spent the entire summer in faraway Scandinavia demonstrating lampworking at Tivoli amusement park. In Copenhagen, I enjoyed a freedom I had never known before, bursting with ideas for new glass masterpieces and plans for the future. Before I left, my Copenhagen employer, Alireza Parsi, offered me several commissions. When I returned home, I began making decorative glass pins for him, marking the beginning of a substantial chapter in my professional life as a glassmaker. These seemingly purposeless glass miniatures, wound in the flame onto stainless-steel pins, became a lifelong love. Thanks to the delightful eccentricity of Danish collectors, who stuck these so-called nipsenåle into colourful pincushions and filled antique glass cabinets with them, a collection eventually grew to around three thousand pieces.

With the money I had saved in Denmark and the courage that my worldly experience had awakened in me, I began to realise my plan to build an annealing kiln for glass. I could not afford to buy a new one, but I had enough money to purchase, transport, and rebuild an old kiln. The doors opened to an entirely new dimension of lampworking. I began annealing not only large objects, but also small jewellery pieces, decorations, and eventually even decorative pins. This allowed me to venture into complex shapes and colour combinations that I would never have dared to attempt without annealing. It was a miracle!

After a year overflowing with creative activity, I once again found myself sitting on a train travelling through Hamburg towards new Copenhagen adventures. How changeable life can be. It did not deny me that intoxicating sense of freedom, but soon I stepped onto the slippery slope of reality and hurtled down the toboggan of unexpected events into the unknown. It wasn't long before I became, alongside Alireza, a mother, co-owner of a company, and wife — in precisely that order.

The depths of life closed over me. Occasionally, ripples on the surface hinted at my creative restlessness. My longing to plunge my hands into the lifeless material and bring at least one of my visions to life through touch resembled a volcano's futile attempt to hasten its own eruption. The laws of nature were stronger, repeatedly folding my yearning hands back into a blessed lap. The image of the maternal happiness I was experiencing was one I could not feel. Surrounded by happiness, I was experiencing profound sadness. Time slipped through my fingers, and I continued waiting for life to perform a miracle — the freedom to create.

A small opportunity came in 2006 with an invitation to participate in an exhibition at a gallery in Malá Skála. Boučkův Statek in Malá Skála — today the Josef Jíra Gallery — had been the home of my great-great-grandfather. Returning to my work was much more than a symbolic return to my roots. I exhibited mostly older pieces, but created a few new ones as well. Given the circumstances of my life, this was as much of a miracle as managing to defend a little corner of our busy household for my one square metre of paradise — a torch, a table, a chair, and a shelf of glass enamel — which had begun to come alive, albeit sporadically.

At the opening, I met glass artist Jaroslava Brychtová in person for the first time. We shook hands, but at that point I had not yet made an impression on her.

The following year, a magnificent opportunity came my way: a trip to America for an internship at The Corning Museum of Glass. For the newly created Blaschka family exhibition, I helped put a historic gasoline-fuelled glassworking torch with a foot bellows into operation for the demonstration studio where glass flowers were made. I had always been fascinated by traditional glassmaking techniques. I knew how to make flowers and was also experienced in working with a gasoline torch.

In the summer of 2007, I spent just under two weeks in Corning. Two weeks of space for my own work, surrounded by the wonders of the world's glass heritage. A unique gift for my thirtieth birthday! I returned home with a renewed determination. A few days without children and everyday responsibilities had changed the course of my life. Every free moment that followed was devoted to creation. There were not many of them, but they were enough to produce my first collection of original jewellery and suspended decorations. At the same time, I began creating a website presenting my work, along with a blog.

These glass touches gave me the strength to endure the difficult reality of everyday life. During the following year, alongside caring for my children and our family business, I once again settled into the precarious life of a self-employed glass artist. The moments spent in my one square metre of paradise brought the much-missed feeling of creative freedom.

The first decade of the new millennium brought a deep economic crisis. Countless glassmakers lost their jobs, while I was starting a glass studio with one child in each arm. Such foolishness — but I could not do otherwise. I created all kinds of tiny glass miniatures on metal pins for Danish collectors, took on small bead commissions, realised designs by fellow artists, and, last but not least, created my own jewellery and decorations.

A turning point in my work came when I encountered the work of Jaroslav Brychta and his daughter Jaroslava, who unexpectedly approached me and asked me to create a collection based on her father's wire figurines, which he had designed in the 1920s.

It was a magnificent adventure. I immensely enjoyed touching history, absorbing the authentic enthusiasm that Mr Brychta had poured into every tiny detail, and delighting in his timeless sense of humour. Within a year, a collection of ten pieces was completed. Jaroslava was delighted. Despite her advanced age, she was still remarkably lively, and the moments we spent creating together were a balm for my wounded soul.

Time was not my friend. It was constantly overtaking me, breathlessly reminding me of lists of responsibilities that had nothing to do with glass. The brief moments I spent with Jaroslava always encouraged me, restored my faith in my own abilities, and revived the hope that glass and I might still have a future together.

Everything changed from one day to the next when the children travelled to Iran with their father to visit their Persian relatives. I had an entire month devoted solely to work, and the change was so radical that it took me a week to learn how to make full use of my free time. It was an extraordinary and euphoric slice of reality. When family life returned to its usual rhythm, I wiped away a tear and put my dreams of creating my own work aside indefinitely.

But that month of freedom brought an important realisation: motherhood is a wonderful gift, and one defined by its temporality.

The years passed, and life did little to smooth the path for me. I always worked from home, and for the last sixteen years I had been additionally wrapped in an apron. I could feel my solitude becoming unbearable. I needed to get away.

The last time I had been away from home on my own was for my internship in the USA. After ten years of family discussions, I finally secured ten days of freedom and, during the summer holidays of 2017, travelled to a woodcarving symposium. The theme was puppet-making. I returned to my youthful dreams of studying puppet scenography.

It was a wonderful time in every respect. My first puppet, Jizera, came into being with such ease. My hands smelled of wood, and watching the shape gradually emerge from the lime tree trunk was an entirely new and captivating experience. Coffee in the afternoon on a sunlit bench, with a log waiting behind me in the workbench... Florida had nothing on it. These were the moments when you feel just how wonderful it is to be alive.

This new experience gave me the courage to apply to university. I was accepted. The tectonic plates of my life, long locked in place, began to move.

Twenty years after leaving secondary school, I once again found myself sitting in a classroom. At DAMU, I studied Creative Pedagogy at the Department of Authorial Creativity and Pedagogy. Through my studies, I entered an entirely new world. I began breathing fully again and finally started to free myself from the apron.

With renewed creative energy, I completed several glass projects that had been sitting in drawers for years. Numerous boxes of experimental pieces and materials disappeared from the studio, making room for new discoveries.

I also finished writing my first book, and it was an incredible feeling. The text, which had taken four years to write, opened up my ability to give shape to an idea through words, and it felt as though I had discovered that I had wings. In the process of writing, I found a bottomless spring of freedom.

My debut book of autobiographical texts, S Alibabou v posteli (In Bed with Ali Baba), was self-published in autumn 2017, just before my fortieth birthday.

The fact that I was finally allowing myself to be who I was fundamentally changed the way I experienced time. School played a major role in this. My unexpected journey into the world of DAMU was a journey back to my roots. I was gradually stopping living the lives of others.

An open, direct, spontaneous and playful little girl, a passionate reciter, dancer and poet had, through the influence of many things, become a withdrawn, quiet and anxious adult. Now I was returning to that first version of myself. It moved me deeply and brought me immense joy to learn how to play again. I was tingling with anticipation at the thought of creating again, as if nobody were watching.

In the summer of 2018, I received a generous invitation from the museum in Železný Brod to participate in a summer symposium. It was my first opportunity to appear publicly as a glass artist.

When I brought Jaroslava the preliminary designs for my suspended piece Elemental Glass, she studied them carefully. I spoke about my grand artistic plans for the future while, in the same breath, questioning whether I could ever realise them given my circumstances.

Jaroslava did not bother with empty reassurance. Instead, she simply said:

“You cannot talk about creating. You have to create.”

After getting a taste of academic life and experiencing the enrichment and fulfilment it brought me, I decided not to abandon my teenage dream of studying an art discipline. I wanted to continue studying.

I began preparing intensively for the entrance examinations. It was different from twenty years earlier. With the depth of life experience behind me, I knew exactly what I expected from life. The feeling that I could do anything had returned.

I was accepted into the Bachelor's programme at DAMU, at the Department of Drama in Education. It was a huge step outside my comfort zone, but after the first semester it was clear that I was in the right place. The practical subjects allowed me to develop and deepen the experience I had gained through my previous studies in Creative Pedagogy. Theatre and literary theory helped me progress in my writing, and what delighted me most was finally being able to devote myself to the puppets I had always dreamed of.

The programme was broad and enriching, and I threw myself into it without restraint.

Finding time for work was difficult, but the overall revival of my personality gave me unexpected strength to bear the weight of everyday life. I completed a collection of original Christmas ornaments that I had been working on for several years. The Museum of Glass and Jewellery in Jablonec nad Nisou accepted the collection into its world-renowned public collection of Christmas ornaments.

I was also given the opportunity to teach part-time. Finally, I could leave my domestic confinement and do meaningful work outside the four walls of my studio. Working with children was exhausting but beautiful. I was able to make full use of what I had learned at DAMU, and my studies eventually came to a successful conclusion.

My Bachelor's thesis was a museum educational programme entitled In the Beginning There Was a Grain of Sand, which introduced children to the process of creating a glass figurine through a glass puppet named Sklorád the Bard.

During the summer holidays of 2022, I treated myself to a solo exhibition at the chateau in Lomnice nad Popelkou. A cross-section of twenty-five years of my work filled the castle cellars with glass — from miniature pins and replicas of wire figurines to Christmas ornaments, original jewellery, monumental bouquets and suspended pieces.

Surrounded by my family, glass enthusiasts and friends, I enjoyed my little moment of joyfully sharing my work before once again jumping back into the whirlwind of work and study.

I applied for the newly opened Master's programme in Glass Design at the university in Liberec. I was accepted.

Under the guidance of Martin Hlubuček and later Lada Semecká, I began exploring Glass in Motion and My Movement in Glass as part of my diploma project. The creative process resulted in my first collection of glass puppets, bringing together two of my great loves — puppets and glass.

My final diploma project, a sculptural work entitled Silence, subsequently found a permanent home in the Botanical Garden in Liberec, where it harmoniously interacts with the exhibits in the cactus greenhouse.

The circle had come full turn.

Just before turning fifty, I completed the field of study that had always been so deeply my own. I graduated in the same week as my daughter.

It is never too late to make a dream come true!

At last, I truly picked up the tangled Ariadne's thread leading all the way back to my artistic beginnings and fully devoted myself to my own work.

The existing glass studio also underwent a transformation, and this creative liberation breathed new life into the established production of glass jewellery, decorations and construction sets under the KAMI GLASS brand.

In the summer of 2025, my daughter and I founded PARSI DESIGN, a family studio creating original jewellery, clothing accessories and interior pieces.

This is the form it has taken today, and here I invite you to share my desire to create as if nobody were watching.

Enjoy, choose, and share my joy in beauty!