My Story

Stained glass, to me, is a creative outlet, a brush with history, an emerging talent, an opportunity to encourage others to create something  beautiful and hopefully, a way to support my family doing something I love.

As a teen I loved theater. I gave to the audience my heart and soul. In turn, they gave me their applause. As a mother of seven I served, taught, entertained and encouraged those amazing little individuals. In turn, they thought of me as their mentor, their leader, their protector, their advocate. Now they are all independent and I am still giving of myself in ways that include opening my heart and sharing what I have learned.

Stained glass is a vehicle of expression. I want to encourage in my students a mindset of life appreciation, cutting away the negative self talk and reaching with enthusiasm into their artist self to build an amazing window to their soul.
When I was just ready to graduate from high school, I had a counselor tell me "Young lady, you just aren't college material." I was crushed. Now I know I was perfect college material. Why? Because I wanted to go.

Since then I have been consistently learning and growing in so many ways. My yearly goal is to read at least 50 books, make more windows than I did the previous year, learn more about business by attending seminars and classes, be in 10 gallery shows, launch a new book and teach at least 100 students to love creating glass art.We are all college material, gallery worthy or anything else we decide to be.

When I was little I loved living on a farm and roaming the Colorado fields near our home.I thought that was the perfect time of life. Then when I was a youth I performed in community plays, school acting contests and state wide competitions in theater and track. I knew that was the best time of life. When I became a new mother and spent every moment surrounded by my family, I thought no other time of life could be closer to heaven. Now, I love this time of my life, not because it's better, but because it's now.

 A stained glass window illuminates the artist's design with the assistance of light. Our experiences illuminate our lives with the assistance of love.