CUPAR - When glass artist Jacqueline Berting's $15,000 Canada Council grant ran dry half way into the creation of her widely-acclaimed The Glass Wheatfield in 1991, the ever-candid Berting didn't hide the fact in interviews with media who'd begun tracking her progress. Then a surprising thing happened.

- all images with permission

The Glass Wheatfield debuted in an outdoor setting at Regina's MacKenzie Art Gallery.

"All of a sudden these cheques started arriving in the mail,'' Berting said. "And the weird thing is, it just kept happening. It was incredible.

"But then I had these bizarre feelings, too. You think: 'Oh my God. Why are they doing this?'''

After the Wheatfield's successful debut in 1992, Berting came up with an idea to build a glass house that would brim with evocative imagery. But when she finally succeeded in landing the elusive grant allowing her to pursue the project, she realized she didn't have the necessary equipment to create the piece.

"James said 'Don't worry. We'll figure this all out. I'll make the stuff'.''

Berting works in the studio on her property north of Regina.

With that, Clark began researching, designing and then constructing all the facilities and production gear Berting needed, including kilns, heating and venting systems and a water-driven grinding wheel for finishing glass surfaces.

"He's just an incredible kind of genius,'' Berting says of Clark, a former photographer, hairdresser and steel-mill crane operator. "He didn't know a thing about any of this stuff when we first met.''

Berting no longer questions the good fortune and serendipity that have played such important roles in her life. She's too busy trying to keep up with the demand for her popular work.

She was born in 1967 and grew up on a farm an hour and a half east of Saskatoon in the St. Gregor region of Saskatchewan. A self-proclaimed 'oddball' who didn't fit in at school, she chose to pursue art, first at Red Deer College in Alberta and later at Ontario's Sheridan College, a year after graduating from high school. At Sheridan she focused on pottery, choosing a class in glass only to fill an elective. Although her early efforts in glass 'looked like garbage', she was hooked.

The House of Perception was created using images intended to appeal to all ages and senses.

"Glass is very mystical, and precious - it's almost true to life. We're very strong and tough and beautiful, yet we're still very fragile. (Glass) seemed to work really well with the kinds of things I wanted to express.''

In some ways, too well.

Berting, who shares a country home with James and young sons Bryce and Lucas, says The Glass Wheatfield, a 400-square-foot base containing 14,000 sheaves of glass wheat, was a salute to the Canadian farmer during difficult economic times. She was pleased with results and happy with the public's response to the piece. But after it was completed, she was ready to move on.

However, fans of the Wheatfield had been phoning before the piece was even completed to ask whether she made any 'small wheat'. With money scarce, it became ever more difficult to deal with these requests.

Berting blows glass near the kiln and other equipment desined and built by husband James.

"At first I said 'No, I don't. The Wheatfield is the Wheatfield.' But I was so broke that I gave in and started making these little gifts, little bundles of wheat.''

She continued to make the wheat, as well as blown-glass baubles, orbs and bottles, as she worked with James to complete the glass house she calls The House of Perception.

To produce the panels that comprise the glass house, Berting used a process called 'sandcasting', in which moist sand with a high clay content is used as a mold, or cast. Objects she wishes to have represented in the panel are placed into the cast before the molten glass is poured into it.

She used the sandcasting technique for a divider she was commissioned to create for the cafeteria in the new fine arts building at The University of Regina. Each of the 200 panels contains an image or images associated with the university.

Berting was one of three artists who contributed work to the fine arts cafeteria at the University of Regina.

Through it all, the popularity of the 'little bundles of wheat' continues to grow. That's given Berting a degree of financial security she could only dream of 10 years ago. Berting Glass now employs several people, including one who spends the majority of his time producing glass wheat. Back home at St. Gregor, her mother helps with marketing and shipping while her father builds frames into which some of the wheat sheaves are set.

Berting admits it was a difficult decision to hive off to others a good share of the gift ware production. But she says she really had no choice.

Glass wheat, in several formats, continues to pay the bills.

"I worked morning to night. I'd play with the kids for a couple of hours after the babysitter left, and then I'd go straight back to work. I was turning into a zombie.''

Theoretically, she should have more time now to pursue the larger, unique projects that satisfy her creative urge. But she's still heavily involved in 'the trap' of day-to-day production. And she's been commissioned to do a major work for a new city hall to be constructed next year in Weyburn.

She looks forward to the time when she can create a major project simply for the joy of doing it.

"There are other big projects I've got on my mind, that I just want to do. And if somebody wants to buy them, great.''

Check out Berting Glass website here.

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