The bowl design was a 'happy accident' when artist Katherine Gray was experimenting with iridescent surfaces. Inspired by James Turrell's "Perceptual Cell," Gray wanted to recreate in smaller scale an inspiring experience of pure color and light. The iridescence is created when microscopically thin layers of vaporized metallic oxides, layered with a coating of vaporized quartz, are applied to the surface of the glass, a technology developed by NASA for glass panels used on rockets and space shuttles. Due to the different way these deposits are distributed on a sandblasted surface, the glass looks to be different colors from different angles. The forms Grey makes allude to body parts and skin: "I want the form and its color to be equally palpable yet mysterious, alluring and confounding at the same time."