Glass artist recycles old Aviary ceiling into art

When the National Aviary Tropical Rainforest was restored with a locally made, bird-friendly glass canopy, some wondered what had happened to the 19,600 square feet of glass left behind.

Meeghan Triggs, a local glass artist and owner of Atelier Glass Studio, is upcycling the 1952-made glass panes into art pieces to celebrate the renovation of the Tropical Rainforest at the bird zoo on the North Side.

“Pittsburgh is a city that has a rich history in glass and rich history in metal and the arts,” Ms. Triggs said. “To do something recycled like this is really neat. It fits right in with where Pittsburgh’s at.”

The glass has been crafted into art pieces to be sold in the Aviary’s gift shop. What begins as an industrial sheet of glass has been transformed into art representing what visitors love about the Aviary, from sloths to penguins to the feathers of exotic birds.

Ms. Triggs got involved with

the project through Monmade, an organization that connects makers to people and businesses looking to support local work in the Pittsburgh area. The pieces are personalized; each piece is cut by hand, signed, numbered and dated. No two are the same.

“Most of my work is very organic,” Ms. Triggs said. “I’m always open to letting the glass do what the glass likes to do.”

Ms. Triggs is most excited about the Mother Nature’s Nesting Bowls, which are made of cut strips of glass overlaid and fused to resemble the natural beauty of a bird’s nest.

The nests require two firings, and total 34 hours in the kiln. The first, fired at 1,430 degrees, fuses the pieces to lay flat. The second, fired at 1,250 degrees, uses a handmade clay mold to form them into a bowl shape.

“I love working with found materials,” Ms. Triggs said. “This glass was formulated and made to go in windows. It wasn’t made to do this, but we can do this with it.”

An unexpected challenge Ms. Triggs faced was how to fuse the glass pieces. The 1952 ceiling was made out of three or four kinds of glass, which have slightly different textures and colors and respond differently to heat.

“There’s a lot of science,” she said. “It’s very involved. There’s a lot of love that goes into this.”

The pieces are priced between $48 and $498. Many of the 225 works were sold during a presale.

“This is really about our city and our aviary. It’s 100 percent local,” Ms. Triggs said. “That just warms my heart, that this is so connected.”

Glass artist Meeghan Triggs separates strips of glass to make her Mother Nature's Nesting Bowls in her Turtle Creek studio.

Emma Honcharski/Post-Gazette photos Meeghan Triggs made what she calls Mother Nature's Nesting Bowls from glass panes removed from the ceiling of the National Aviary.

Darrell Sapp/Post-Gazette Dick Beuke, president at Vitro Architectural Glass, shows new low-iron architectural glass, left, that was installed on the ceiling of the Tropical Rainforest in the National Aviary. Next to it is a piece of acid-etched glass that was removed.