About

Marissa Manderfield is the artist behind Mars Glassworks, creating celestial, floral, and kinetic objects for adornment and display. Each piece is shaped through heat, movement, and precise handwork.

Originally from Wisconsin, Marissa spent much of her adult life in Colorado, where her work with glass began more than a decade ago. At eighteen, after discovering the world of contemporary flameworked glass, she sought out an apprenticeship and moved to Colorado to learn the fundamentals of borosilicate glass and production pipemaking. From there, she continued largely as a self-taught artist, gradually developing her own techniques, visual language, and approach to the material.

Over the years, her work evolved from functional glass into jewelry, sculptural objects, and pieces designed for display. Her practice is especially inspired by the natural world, celestial imagery, movement, and the unusual possibilities of glass as a medium.

Outside the studio, Marissa is a collector of houseplants and is happiest hiking, making art, or studying astrology. These interests frequently find their way back into her work—through botanical forms, organic details, symbolism, and a fascination with the relationship between the natural and celestial worlds.