In the art piece "Crocodile Tears," a weeping crocodile towers above a girl. She extends her left hand, touching the creature's chest in a show of comfort. | Photo Gallery

She already has lost her right arm, from the elbow down - presumably to the crocodile, who is feigning tears while poised to consume another of the girl's limbs.

"Crocodile Tears," a glass sculpture by Carmen Lozar of Normal, speaks to idealism and the vulnerability of the idealist - of hope that has deteriorated into blind faith.

The sculpture was one of 25 glass pieces chosen for the prestigious Bombay Sapphire Prize exhibit in Milan, Italy. It is one of five finalists from the United States.

There is a degree of autobiography in the scene of faked tears.

Said Lozar, "I guess all pieces relate to yourself in a way. I tend to be forgiving all the time, overly trusting. You always want to give someone another chance. You always want to believe that person is going to do right."

"But sometimes you're going to get burned again."

At Bombay Sapphire, the winning pieces sometimes are massive and the artists are famous beyond the art scene; a past winner is "The Crown Fountain," the towering faces that spit water in Chicago's Millennium Park, created by Jaume Plensa.

Lozar works small in scale. "Crocodile Tears" is 10 inches by 10 inches by 8 inches.

Being in the exhibit shows that this artist has arrived on a grand stage, as does an ongoing exhibit with three other artists at Marx-Saunders Gallery in Chicago.

She sounded a little overwhelmed at having made the list of finalists for the Bombay Sapphire Prize.

Its $40,000 award is the largest in the world for a glass competition, according to Bombay Sapphire, which split this year's prize between Japanese artist Yuichi Higashionna and the UK's Annie Cattrell.

Names of finalists, like Judith Schaecther of Philadelphia, are artists Lozar has looked up to over the years and considers masters, not peers. Lozar started working with glass at age 19 and she is just 32.

It takes years for even the most talented to become great with glass, said Lozar. She can look to her own experiences and early frustrations, but she also gets reminders of the difficulty of the medium as a glass teacher for the Illinois Wesleyan University School of Art. Her primary duty at IWU is that of director of the Merwin and Wakeley Galleries.

The Chicago exhibit, at Marx-Saunders through April 26, is called "Narratives," and it suits her work well. Her pieces suggest frozen scenes from a larger story, and her storytelling propensity may be influenced by her mother's work as a puppeteer while Lozar was growing up in Champaign, the artist said.

The artist can provide a text, but the viewers also can produce narratives in their own minds while viewing her work.

The Milan piece, "Crocodile Tears," leaps out of open pages. The stand for the glass figures is made to appear as a book.

Another prevailing theme of her art is the attempt to fix that which is broken, but with imperfect results: A rabbit with an awkward-looking wooden ear; a stork with a peg leg; an elephant with a prosthetic trunk.

She's unsure from where in her mind she produced a recurrence of prosthetic animal limbs, but she thinks of it as reflecting her sensitivity and a tendency of being overly sympathetic. The pieces are statements on fragility, she said.

Lozar shares a home and studio with another glass artist, husband Matthew Urban. Urban considers his spouse to be the superior artist of the household, and in terms of recognized accomplishments she is ahead. But this isn't a competition, the couple said.

Urban said he gets a vicarious lift out of his spouse's career progress.

They share ideas and equipment and a studio, but their styles are vastly different.

Urban explores optical illusion. He considers his overarching theme to be "perception."

Another preoccupation for him is with the return of ornate decoration of glass that has been stripped away by modernists.

They are expecting their first child in the summer, and Lozar's work reflects this portion of her family narrative. Her piece "Pollination," which is part of the Chicago exhibit, shows a man and woman in bed under a blanket, on their sides looking into each other's eyes.

Turn a miniature crank on the side of the art piece and a bee moves up and down on the bed.

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Glasses, glass art

Bombay Sapphire is a brand of high-end gin but it also is associated with high-end glass art.

The company had a long connection with designers. For nearly 20 years, it has held annual exhibits in which designers interpret the martini glass.

In 2001, the company established the Bombay Sapphire Foundation to extend a commitment to the full breadth of glasswork with the Bombay Sapphire Prize. The prize draws artists, architects and designers from around the world.

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Making 'Crocodile Tears'

"Crocodile Tears," the piece by Carmen Lozar of Normal, was made in 2007 and incorporates three types of glasswork.

The girl's torso/dress is flame-worked. It was made by blowing through a tube and manipulating shapes by levels of heat applied to the glass from a propane torch, the spots where heat is applied, the amount of air blown into the glass tube and the pressure of the air being blown into the glass tube.

The crocodile was made through molding in a kiln.

The girls head and limbs were made by sculpting heated glass rods. Lozar used oil paint on some details.