From Bethesda Magazine: Science-inspired glass art
Nothing is off-limits to Jane Hartman, a scientist with multiple degrees and a stylized art business who creates glass renderings of E. coli bacteria, trilobites and more.
“I once made a tapeworm Christmas tree ornament,” the Rockville resident says. “Tapeworms are gross, but if you make it pretty colors, people say, ‘Oh, what’s that?’”
Jane Hartman holds a fused glass rendering of Staphylococcus (bacteria) that she made. She also crafted her earrings, which depict coronavirus. Photo credit: Lindsey Max
Through Trilobite Glassworks, her part-time business, Hartman, 67, designs fused and stained glass items that are both eye-catching and scientifically accurate. Her company’s name is a nod to her master’s degree in paleontology, in honor of the extinct creature called the trilobite. Whether it’s a tiny plate featuring the bacteria that causes gonorrhea, glass earrings displaying Staphylococcus aureus bacteria, or a norovirus fused-glass refrigerator magnet, the widowed mother of three adult children finesses the glass to bring Mother Nature’s beauty to life.
“She clearly has this amazing intersection of art and science that she does so well,” says customer Krista Wigginton, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Michigan. “She understands the science, but she also makes beautiful art.”
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For the past seven years, Wigginton has commissioned decorative plates from Hartman as a gift for each of her students when they defend their doctoral thesis. Glass renderings of viruses and double-stranded DNA genomes memorialize the students’ efforts.
“We reach out to her when we have a defense coming up, and she’ll ask for two or three papers from the student to get an idea of the topic,” Wigginton says. “What’s clear is that she knows the science.”
In addition to her master’s degree in paleontology from the University of Wyoming, Hartman holds a bachelor’s degree in geology from the University of Michigan. After college, she married, started a family, and created glassware as a hobby.
Hartman works out of a studio in the basement of her home, which contains soldering irons, two kilns, hundreds of sheets of glass, and about 100 jars of colorful crushed glass. When she started marketing her products in the early 2000s, Hartman crafted more traditional glass pieces, such as stained glass windows and suncatchers, in hopes of attracting a broader audience. When she named her business Trilobite Glassworks, it garnered questions from science fans asking if she created trilobites. In 2009, she bowed to the demand she saw for specialized scientific artwork. Hartman started taking commissions, as science-focused customers saw her talent.
“That’s where I started doing really geeky, really neat stuff because scientists wanted art that depicted what they were researching,” she says. Now she has a constant waiting list.
Hartman’s art is available on her Etsy website, Trilobite Glassworks, and through trilobiteglassworks.weebly.com. Science lovers are drawn to her unique wares in the form of earrings, necklaces, dishes, paperweights or refrigerator magnets. She researches, designs and creates nearly 30 commissions a year, she says, in addition to offering smaller products.
Anne Estes teaches microbiology at Towson University and has been scooping up Hartman’s scientific masterpieces for years. In her classroom, Estes proudly dons necklaces with glass resembling E. coli, cyanobacteria and a bacterial stomach infection called Helicobacter pylori.
“It was my reward for the first five or six times I taught my microbiology class; at the end of every semester, I allowed myself to buy one piece of Jane’s work,” Estes says. “People will go, ‘Oh, what a neat piece of glass.’ I’ll say, ‘It’s beautiful, but it’s really C. diff, which can kill you.’ ”
Catherine Linnen, from the University of Kentucky’s biology department, commissions bespoke glass pieces for her Ph.D. candidates.
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“Every piece Jane has done for me has been really special and unique and beautiful,” she says. “The students and postdocs have absolutely loved them, and now it’s a known tradition.”
Hartman concedes that her uncommon art is an acquired taste. “Non-scientists sometimes are like, ‘Wow, that’s really cool, but you’re weird, Jane,’ ” she says. “That’s funny and that’s OK—I take it as a compliment.”
This appears in the March/April 2025 issue of Bethesda Magazine.
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