"Caramba Eve" by Ulrica Hydman Vallien, 13.5" tall, excellent....ULRICA HYDMAN-VALLIENUlrica Hydman-Vallien can certainly not be accused of being ordinary. Her design has had its own style ever since the beginning of her artistic career. Already when Ulrica was 17 years old she became a student at the College of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm, and went on to further study in the USA and Mexico. Throughout her career, she has explored a variety of means of expression. It was only in 1972 that she started as a glass designer at Kosta Boda, where her imagination has been expressed in many ways. Ulrica's hallmark has become the painted glass, which has been very successful for a very long time. Above all, many associate her with the tulips in the series Tulipa, which was launched in the 1990's. The colourful, defined and intense idiom recurs in everything that Ulrica creates for Kosta Boda.Everything is painted by the skilled painters in the studio by the glassworks. Ulrica participates in the work when teaching the painters how to paint each new range. As well as working with well-established techniques, she has developed two new techniques that provide the decoration of the glass with unimagined depth. In the Kabale technique (which is based on the patented Orrefors technique Graal) the core is made out of different layers of glass that together give a great depth to the decoration. A pattern is then sand blasted and painted with enamel paint. The core is now burnt to fix the colour. Finally, another coat of glass is added. The result is a pattern with great depth where all the layers are visible. Another technique, Juvel, is very similar, but in this technique parts of the glass are sand blasted. The parts that are covered stay the same colour as they were before. The glass is then glass treated with acid to make it smooth. Lastly, the glass is painted and the colour is fixed by burning the colour. Ulrica has worked as a teacher at two art schools, the Pilchuck Glass School in the USA where she taught from 1982 to1988, and Bildwerk in Germany where she taught in 1989. Her work has been exhibited on a great number of occasions throughout the years. As one can expect she is also represented at many museums across the globe. A few examples are the National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo, the Museum of Modern Art in Stockholm and the Israel Museum in Jerusalem...