Featured Artists Pam and Sky Archuleta

Sua Lana Glass Art in Scappoose, Oregon

Hello glass friends! I’m Pam Archuleta, and my husband, Sky, and I are Sua Lana Glass Art in Scappoose, Oregon. Sua Lana (pronounced ‘Shwa Lana’) is a Basque term that means ‘created by hand with fire.’

Our business was borne from our love of art and a fascination with glass. I began my journey in glass some 15+ years ago when I was inspired to take classes in glassblowing. At the time, I truly didn’t realize there were so many ways of working with glass, and my experience with glassblowing quickly blossomed to include torch work and fusing in various ways. The process that has proven most interesting in my exploration so far is pate de verre because it’s a complex process that taught me many things about glass and its properties, and gave me an opportunity to learn how to make many different types of molds.

I began making pate de verre pieces after seeing a small bowl at the Bullseye Resource Center that captured my imagination. Bullseye was offering classes at the time, so I happily signed up to learn. I really liked the bowl I made in class, but didn’t honestly know what to do with it when I brought it home. I decided to put it on my fireplace mantle and light it up with a small candle. The way it glowed was so beautiful it inspired me to make a lamp shade. A friend encouraged me to enter my lamp in the fair that year, and it earned first place at both the Columbia County and Oregon State Fairs.

Around the time I was learning pate de verre, Sky retired from his engineering management career in high tech and was looking for a new adventure. Sky is very creative and has always loved to do artwork. Most of his art involved painting, drawing, woodworking and playing guitar, but he ventured out to the studio one day and began to work on a pate de verre piece. It’s always wonderful to have a creative person to work with in the studio, but even better when it’s your best friend and partner for over 40 years. This was the beginning of Sua Lana. We decided to focus our business on creating pate de verre lighting because we both love the way light shines through glass with this technique, and saw an opportunity to make beautiful lighting in a style we hadn’t previously seen. Today we’ve got table lamps and pendant lights in penthouse suites, yacht clubs, doctor’s offices, and private homes, and we’ve enjoyed making every piece. To Sky and I, the most gratifying part of creating each light is the positive energy we’ve received from our customers. We’ve truly received as much love from our customers as we’ve put into our artwork.