Glass Artist Elena Fleury-Rojo Learned an Endangered Craft to Seal Coral Reefs Inside Glass

Elena Fleury-Rojo is a glass artist in Colchester, Essex, who makes borosilicate glass sculptures inspired by coral reefs and marine life under the name Red Flower Glass. She studied glassblowing at Buckinghamshire University, graduating in 2008, worked as a Hot Glass Tutorial Assistant at Wanganui Glass School in New Zealand, and founded Red Flower Glass in 2011 – the name is her surname in translation: ‘Fleury’ is French for flower, ‘Rojo’ is Spanish for red.

Elena works with borosilicate glass at the torch, combining flameworking with scientific glassblowing. She heats the glass until it is molten and builds forms by adding, shaping and joining individual pieces: delicate branches, organic textures, hollow structures. Since her 2025 training with scientific glassblower Brian Jones MBE, she encases delicate natural forms within larger glass structures. Her fan corals kept cracking until she changed the order of making: all the tiny loops, then annealing, then the rest.

Elena welcomes inquiries about commissions and bespoke work, particularly from collectors, galleries and interior designers looking for something individual and distinctive. Each commission is considered individually, as the scale, complexity and techniques can vary considerably. She is happy to discuss projects with interior designers who want her work in a residential or commercial space. Her pieces range from approximately £800 to £3,500, and she sells and ships internationally.

Elena sells much of her work directly through Instagram, where she has 2K followers: it is an important way for people to discover her work and get in touch. She also takes part in a few exhibitions each year – in 2026 she showed Invisible Reef at the British Glass Biennale at The World of Glass in St Helens. She has no permanent gallery at the moment and sells mainly to collectors, a good proportion of them outside the UK.

Glass has been part of Elena’s life for over 18 years. She studied glassblowing at Buckinghamshire University, graduating with a BA (Hons) in 2008, and was fascinated by the material and the possibilities it offered.

“Glass can be solid and delicate, transparent and reflective, yet it is constantly changing while you work with it.”

After graduating, she kept developing her skills. In New Zealand she worked as a Hot Glass Tutorial Assistant at Wanganui Glass School, which let her learn from others, share what she knew and experience a different glassmaking community. In 2011 she founded Red Flower Glass to develop her own artistic practice and make work that reflected her interests in nature, organic forms and the underwater world.

The name is a family tradition. “My grandfather named his own business after our family, and I’ve always wanted to do something similar,” she says. “My surname is Fleury-Rojo – ‘Fleury’ is French for flower and ‘Rojo’ is Spanish for red, so when you translate it, you get Red Flower.” It was practical too: her surname isn’t the easiest for everyone to pronounce, and Red Flower Glass is much simpler to remember and say.

Elena got into diving during her PADI training in the south of France, and has since dived in Malta and Mexico. The cenotes in Mexico were the most memorable: “You drive through the jungle before climbing down into these natural water holes and swimming through underground cave systems,” she says. “You pass incredible stalactites and stalagmites, discover hidden pockets and even bat caves. One of the fascinating things is experiencing the meeting point between fresh and salt water underground.” Diving has shaped the way she looks at nature and the way she translates organic structures into glass.

She works mainly with borosilicate glass, a specialist material that withstands high temperatures and allows both intricate, detailed structures and larger sculptural forms. At the torch, she heats the glass until it becomes molten and manipulates it with a range of tools, building forms by adding, shaping and joining individual pieces: delicate branches, organic textures, intricate details or hollow structures.

Before a piece reaches the flame, she researches natural forms: scientific illustrations, marine specimens and her own dives. Her coral-inspired work explores the beauty and fragility of underwater ecosystems – she wants to capture something of their complexity while drawing attention to how vulnerable these environments are. More recently, she has been working with specialist equipment to encase delicate natural forms within larger glass structures, exploring scale, transparency and the relationship between the inside and outside of an object.

“Glass is an unforgiving material, and timing is essential,” she says. “You have to understand how it behaves, anticipate how it will move and sometimes adapt your original idea as you work. I want the finished pieces to feel as though they belong to the natural world, even though they are made from glass.”

A selection of Elena’s borosilicate glass sculptures exploring organic forms, coral reefs and marine life. Invisible Reef (H30 × W17 × D17 cm) holds three bleached coral forms within a clear borosilicate glass ovoid. The Living Filament (H42 × W19 × D19 cm) is a delicate Melithaea virgata sea fan encased within a larger glass structure. All the pieces shown are available to purchase directly from Red Flower Glass, with international shipping. Photos: Sophie Booth Photography.

Elena’s work appeals to people who appreciate handmade objects, contemporary craft and the natural world: private collectors, people with an interest in glass and those drawn to the relationship between art, nature and science. She doesn’t have a permanent gallery at the moment and sells mainly to collectors directly. She sells and ships internationally, and a good proportion of her sales go to customers outside the UK. She is interested in developing relationships with interior designers and architects looking for distinctive sculptural pieces, and is happy to discuss projects for residential or commercial spaces.

In the early days of Red Flower Glass, Elena made smaller pieces – handmade glass beads and little glass trinkets – and sold them at craft markets, a good way to get her work out there, meet people and learn about selling as an independent maker. “I can’t honestly remember the very first piece I sold or who bought it!” she says. “But even then, I knew I wanted to take my work in a more sculptural direction.” The smaller pieces were a starting point that helped her develop her skills, and over time she moved away from decorative objects towards the organic, nature-inspired sculptures that are central to her practice today.

Instagram is where much of Elena’s work sells: it is an important way for people to discover her work and get in touch, and it lets her share the making process and the ideas behind individual pieces. Exhibitions do the other half, giving people the chance to see the work in person. Most recently she showed Invisible Reef at the 2026 British Glass Biennale at The World of Glass in St Helens, and took part in the Endangered Crafts exhibition at Stourbridge Glass Museum.

Being selected for exhibitions and getting involved with the wider glass and craft community have introduced her work to new audiences. Over the years, relationships with galleries, other makers, collectors and craft organizations have been particularly valuable.

Elena’s fan corals took several attempts. “I had several pieces crack during the making process, which was frustrating, particularly when I had already spent so much time building up the delicate details,” she says. Part of the problem was the combination of certain glass colors and the way she built the structure: adding the delicate details while bracing the main coral form put too much stress on the glass. She rethought the order of her work – creating all the tiny loops around the main coral structure, annealing the piece, and only then going back to add the remaining loops that bring the fan coral to life.

“It was a process of trial and error, but it taught me a lot about understanding the stresses in the glass and how important the order of making can be,” she says. “Sometimes you have to take a step back and change your approach rather than keep trying to make the same method work.”

Not everything works in glass: a piece can take much longer than expected, a technical challenge can prove harder than anticipated, and something that took hours can be lost to a small mistake. She has also learned that an ambitious idea is only the beginning – sometimes the equipment, materials or knowledge to realize it aren’t immediately available, and she has had to find ways to develop her skills, access specialist facilities and invest in the tools that let her progress.

An Arts Council England Developing Your Creative Practice grant in 2022 gave Elena time to develop her practice and explore new directions. Then, in 2024, a Heritage Crafts Training Bursary let her train in scientific glassblowing in 2025 with Brian Jones MBE, who has since retired. Scientific glassblowing is a highly specialized and increasingly endangered craft, and the training opened up whole new techniques: she had never made condensers before.

It wasn’t only Brian teaching her. “I would sometimes arrive with a design or an idea for something I wanted to make, and he would look at it and say something along the lines of, ‘I’ve never made one of those before. I’m not sure we can do that!’” she says. “But rather than giving up on the idea, we’d come back the next day and have a go.” One example is The Living Filament, a delicate sea fan encased within a larger glass structure: the outer shape was something Brian hadn’t made before, and through experimentation and a few attempts, they made it work. “I think we both learnt something from each other, which made the training particularly special.”

Heritage Crafts had shown real belief in her and her work, and she wanted to give something back. She organized the Endangered Crafts exhibition at Stourbridge Glass Museum, which ran from July to November 2026, bringing together artists and makers working in endangered glass crafts. “I did all the planning and administration while I was heavily pregnant, then travelled up to Stourbridge to help install the exhibition when my son was still a baby!” she says. After having her baby she knew she wouldn’t be spending as much time in the studio, and the exhibition gave her another creative way to stay involved with the glass community and support other makers. “I’m really pleased I took it on, and it was lovely to see it come together.”

Elena is now bringing traditional flameworking and scientific glassblowing together, exploring what is possible when the two disciplines meet. In 2026 she was awarded funding through the Heritage Crafts Endangered Craft Fund to develop her specialist equipment and continue this work, towards larger and more complex pieces.

Red Flower Glass is the studio of British glass artist Elena Fleury-Rojo, creating distinctive borosilicate glass sculptures inspired by marine life, organic forms and the natural world. Combining flameworking and scientific glassblowing, her work is for collectors, galleries and interior designers looking for unique, thoughtfully made contemporary glass art.

Have a question for Elena about her work or a commission, or a few words about her story and work? Leave them in the comments at the end of this story.

Facts

Who: Elena Fleury-Rojo (Red Flower Glass)
What: Handcrafted borosilicate glass sculptures and artworks inspired by the natural world
Where: Colchester, Essex, United Kingdom
Started: 2011
Audience: 2K Instagram followers
Customers: Private collectors in the UK and abroad
Price range: Approximately £800–£3,500
Custom orders: Yes
Ships: Worldwide
Works with designers: Open to it
Channels: Social Media, Word of Mouth & Offline