I’m Rose Mary France Rye. I make small glass pieces in my garden studio in Thornbury, in Melbourne’s north.

It began with a single coaster. I’d been pulling apart the idea for a while, but the first one in the format I use now had me basically shouting and running to show my partner. It was a multicoloured one, and people still pick it as a favourite today. After that I couldn’t stop. I go to sleep thinking about colour combinations and wake up wanting to turn out more than the day before.

Each piece is a grid of bevelled glass tiles, set by hand into bright white epoxy grout. The grout matters more than it looks. I spent a long time getting the timing right, and a lot of failed pieces taught me the hard way: too soon and it smears, too late and it turns into a sticky mess. My YouTube history is now entirely tradies grouting bathrooms. White epoxy is waterproof, it lasts, and it makes the colour pop like nothing else.

The names come from whatever the colours remind me of. Lego. Palm Springs. Barbican. A Splice ice cream eaten in your bathers on a day that stretches on forever. Colour is personal, so I can never quite predict which one will land for someone. It rubs up against a memory you already have.

There are loose tiles scattered through the house and in most of my pockets.