I’m a self taught stained glass artisan. I think glass is beautiful and love the textures and how artistic it is on its own. I started doing glass the day I walked into a glass shop, wanted to buy a window and was explaining to my husband how I would hang it. The artist and owner of the shop said, “no, it shouldn’t hang that way”. So I decided to learn to make my own. I asked what tools and equipment I would need, bought glass and got busy creating and hanging my art the way I liked. That was 23 years ago.

I’ve had my work shown in Glass Patterns Quarterly and have done various shows and hung in art galleries here in Indiana. I’ve done very large projects, church windows and doors, to very small pieces like earrings and pins and everything in between. I like to add beads and jewelry and do decorative soldering to give my work a 3D effect.

A few years after I began I tried dog portraits just to see if I could make them look realistic. People seemed to love them. I did one for a representative from the NCCF and sometime after I was asked to create a Christmas ornament incorporating their pink paw logo. That was in 2012 and it was the first NCCF stained glass Christmas ornament.

I feel truly blessed to work with the NCCF and hope to continue creating these one of a kind ornaments. I’m so glad they make people happy. That is truly the best compliment and reason to do my glasswork.