Glass. Glass is cool. It’s sand with attitude. Some people use glass as a medium to create art. I’ve watched people do this and I’m still in awe when I see the finished product.

There’s a Design Style Guide member named Cindi Allen who does wonderful, delightful things with glass. I think you’ll like what you see.

1. What is your shop name and what do you sell?

My shop is named Innovative Glass Designs and I sell stained and fused glass windows, mobiles, dishes, coasters and suncatchers.

2. What long series of events led to you doing this?

When I was very young I thought of myself as an artist, but in my early teens I gave up the idea because I wasn’t very good at drawing.  However, I designed and made most of my own clothes and taught myself to do intricate jewelry pieces with seed beads.  I also drew most of the posters I hung in my room.  I floated around for a few years after high school and finally committed to a career in health care.  I tried out several aspects of it, massage, home health, emergency medicine and social work, and none of them quite fit me.  During that time I had been playing with colored pencil drawings and collage for my own enjoyment, never looking at them after they were finished.  One day a friend asked to see them and when I layed them all out on the table I realized that many of them were pretty good!  Not long after that I started art school.  My primary focus was ceramics and fine metals and as a whim I took a stained glass class at a local shop.  It was a 6 week class, and I didn’t give it much thought until I was out of school and trying to find something I could make to earn a living and someone gave me a bunch of stained glass scraps for which they had no use.  During that time I was making candles, silver jewelry and slip cast ceramic candle holders, so I added stained glass suncatchers and jewelry to my inventory.  The glass was my greatest seller, so eventually I dropped the other three and kept going with the glass.

3. Who taught you the particular skills you use in your work?

I’m mostly self taught.  I talk to other glass artists and we share ideas and discoveries and I learn a lot that way.  I like to experiment, and I’ve tried to do a lot of things with glass that don’t work too well, but, along the way I’ve managed to discover some fun things that work well.

4. How long have you been selling online, and which online service(s) do you use?

I had a shop on eBay in 2006-7.  I was selling a lot of small items but not making enough money to cover the fees, so I quit.  In the fall of 2008 I opened my Etsy.com shop and another on Artistful.com, which has since closed down.  Soon after that I started a page on Glassartists.com.  In the fall of 2009 I got on DesignStyleGuide.com, and in March of this year I started a page on Artsavvy.com.

5. What is your favorite thing about your online shop?

I like being able to see a body of work as a whole.  When I’m finished making a piece it goes in a box and I don’t really see what I have.  This way I can look in and say to myself, ‘Wow, I need more red!”  lol  Actually I say that often!  Or I can look at a piece I made a few months ago and I think, “What if I took that pattern and tweaked it like this.”  And then I have a whole new piece!

6. What is your favorite thing about what you sell?

I love the colors.  I love color combinations.  I like taking different colors and seeing what works together, sometimes you’ll have two colors that clash and look terrible together.  Then you add one or two other colors and you have a beautiful thing.

7. What is your favorite item in your own shop and why?

My favorite item in my shop is probably Ice Cave, although Colloisi runs a close second.  I prefer these two because they incorporate a technique that it took me about two years to figure out.  I call the technique ‘lacy glass’.  To create these pieces I make a shallow mold, about 1/8″ thick.  I use crushed, colored glass called frit to create the color pattern within the mold.  I layer the glass higher than the edge of the mold and when it’s fired it melts down much lower as it pushes the air out.  It needs to be repeatedly filled and fired until it completely fills the space post-firing.  This takes 2-4 firings depending on the intricacy of the pattern.  After it’s removed from the mold I grind the edges clean and fire it again.  I usually do this 2-3 times to be sure I have smooth clean edges and the exact shape I want.

I prefer Ice Cave to Colloisi because It is 3-dimensional, and because of the simplicity of it.  It has a clean, elegant flow in the negative and positive spaces, and I love the way the colors work together and give it an icy, other-worldly feel.

8. How does your work differ from the work of other artists in your field?

That’s a harder question to answer than one might think, glass is so diverse: there’s fused, cast, blown, lampworked and stained glass.  I use three of these techniques.

My work differs from that of other fused glass artists’ in that dichroic glass seems to be the favorite medium.  I don’t tend to use it.  I have seen some truly beautiful dichroic glass pieces, and I’ve tried working with it before and been unsuccessful.  With dichroic I feel like I am starting out with already complete sections and trying to piece them together to create something else.  I work better with a blank slate.

My work is different from most stained glass in that I prefer curves to straight lines, the deeper the curve the better, and I work 3-dimensionally and in layers as opposed to keeping my image to a single, flat surface.

In terms of cast glass, my work is thinner than that of most, and I use more diverse colors.  I work cold, whereas many glass casters work hot.

9. What teams do you belong to and what do you like most about them?

The only team I’m currently involved with is Design Style Guide.  The main thing I like about it is the centralized focus of interior design.  Etsy is so broad in the spectrum of crafts and craft supplies that it sometimes feels easy to get lost.  In DSG the focus is streamlined to attract a more specific market, and a tighter community of artists and crafters.

10. What is the most fun thing you do to promote your shop?

I’m a little embarrassed to admit that I haven’t really done much to promote my shop!  This question prompted me to look into my options and I created my first Treasury on SDG.  It was fun to think up a theme and look for items that fit into it.  I look forward to making more.

11. What are some of your favorite finds by other sellers?

That’s a tough question to answer.  There are so many things I like.  The playful clocks and dishes by Mary Jude Ceramic Art and the sleek and elegant vessels by Madstone Raku are two that quickly come to mind.  I love the innovative, vinyl wall art by Janey Mac, and the intricate, canvas prints by The Painted Lily, too.

12. What do you do in your spare time?

I live in a small town that has only been incorporated for about 10 years.  I am very involved in the politics of the town and how it grows and changes to accommodate it’s growing population.  I rock climb, hike, backpack, and ski.   I play with fabrics; sewing, dyeing and painting.  I have 13 nieces and nephews, 6 of whom live near by, and I spend as much time as I can with them, doing some of the things I’ve listed above and playing lots of games.

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If you make Handmade Home Decor Items, come and join our team by clicking on the image below. Not only will you be able to network with us, but also you will have the ability to post your listing on our team website.

If you like this blog entry you’ll love my blog, jn3 Hand Crafted Woodworks. Check it out. I’ll be glad you did.

8 July, 2010    | Published by Jay Neale III in Interview-DSG Member, Main, Treasuries