Simon has breathed fresh life into a moribund technique with daring extravagance. The recipe, on its face, is quite simple; exaggerate and elaborate. The result is magical. Starting with relatively straightforward geometric patterns, but cut significantly more closely, broadly and deeply than tradition would dictate, Simon brings a post-modern freshness to genre. The true extravagance is not in the cutting but in the form and its assembly.

In conventional cut glass, tight corners or complex compositions hamper the ability to cut, as the form must be completed and assembled first, but big circular blades can’t enter small areas. Simon’s solution is to create the parts separately like building blocks and then stick them together with big, thick globs of molten glass. The challenge is re-heating the cut elements without losing the brilliant sharpness of the cut, so that they don’t crack when the molten glass is introduced. Timing is everything. And why go to such lengths if you are not proud of the process? So Simon brags of his feat by assembling the elements with a playful, off-kilter arrangement like a drunkard with tube of crazy glue. Of course, the globs of glass glue drip and flow from the crevasses to further revel in the irreverent fun.