Judith Schaechter: Super/Natural, currently on view at San Francisco’s Museum of Craft and Design (MCD) through February 8, 2026, explores the universality of natural elements, patterns, and ornament as vehicles for meditating on beauty. At the heart of the exhibition is Schaechter’s most ambitious work to date (also titled “Super/Natural”), an 8-foot-tall, 5.5-foot-diameter, stained glass dome created during her residency at the Penn Center for Neuroaesthetics. Designed to accommodate a single viewer inside, it represents a three-tiered cosmos that reflects her study of biophilic design and its impact on human consciousness. Biophilic principles are often used in hospitals and office buildings to create “refresh rooms,” places designed to lower stress and foster feelings of serenity and peace. The “Super/Natural” dome features 65 vibrant stained-glass panels teeming with fantastical insects, flora, birds, and beasts. By situating the viewer at the center, it invites contemplation of inner space — how we experience environments neurologically and psychologically — and outer space — how we extend ourselves into our surroundings. Beyond the immersive and meditative experience of her work, Schaechter sheds new light on this traditional medium. Working with “flash glass,” a type of hand-blown glass featuring a paper-thin veneer of vibrant color on a clear base, she pioneered her own labor-intensive process, sandblasting, etching, and layering colors to achieve rich, nuanced tones and painterly effects, completed with black enamel and silver stain. In addition to the dome, the exhibition features seven additional artworks by Schaechter, which share themes of natural elements, pattern, ornament, and examine the cultural construction of nature. The work in Judith Schaechter: Super/Natural aims to offer meditation on our psychological and aesthetic relationship to the natural world, becoming a lens both literal and metaphorical, through which visitors are invited to consider how beauty, imagination, and nature are intertwined in shaping human experience.To learn more, visit sfmcd.org. Judith Schaechter: Super/Natural is generously supported by Anonymous and Glass Alliance of Northern California.