I started in stained glass when I was 16. I instantly fell in love with the medium and decided that’s what I wanted to do. Somewhere around my 27th birthday, I was walking around the warehouse of my local glass supplier and noticed a bead making kit. I decided I would try it out because my mother was totally addicted to beads. She was the type that would take embroidery patterns and make them out of seed beads instead of the floss. So, I grabbed the kit, went to a metal supplier and bought super thin piano wire and ended up making my mother a baby jar full of seed beads for Christmas. You should have seen the look on her face! Then she explained to me that seed beads were machine made. I had no idea! From there, I made all sorts of awful looking beads using my HotHead torch and MAPP gas. You get some funny looks when you are clearing out all the MAPP gas canisters at 2 a.m. in Walmart. Just saying. I was hooked and never looked back.

When I first started off, I was only using soft glass. I didn’t even know what boro was until a few years later. When I finally learned that beadmaking was a real thing, the internet wasn’t so great back then, I actively started looking for places to learn. The internet pointed me in the direction of the Sonoran Glass School in Tucson, Arizona, and the Arizona Society of Glass Beadmakers. Tucson was a bit far, but I did find a show that the ASGB was at in Mesa, Arizona. My mind was blown! That is also where I learned about the Mesa Arts Center. I started looking through their classes and settled on taking a beginning borosilicate class with Rocky Hoff. I had no idea what borosilicate even meant, but I wanted to make all the things listed in the class description. I had a blast! A few months later, I had the opportunity to take a class from a visiting artist. It was my first workshop and I had no idea what I was getting into. That class was with Akihiro Okama, and we were learning to make dragonflies with Japanese Satake glass. I was in for a wild ride going from boro to Satake. It was hard and I had more glass on the table then I did in my murrini, but I didn’t care. There was no turning back after that. After joining the ASGB, I could take classes from all sorts of people. The ones that stand out the most and have influenced me the most are JC Herrell, Terri Caspary Schmidt, Bronwen Heilman, Milon Townsend, James Yaun, Freddy Faerron, and the Mazet family.

My Craft - Creating, Selling, Teaching, Working.

I’m mostly known for making borosilicate marbles. I do switch back and forth between marbles and soft glass beads, but beads aren’t what people expect to see from me anymore. I like to keep people on their toes!

I have found a happy home selling at various comic book and pop culture conventions. You wouldn’t think that marbles would be a huge hit, but you’d be surprised! I’m a HUGE comic book and sci-fi nerd. It’s great to talk with people about their fandoms and teach them about glass at the same time. I’ve had a few friends try the con circuit though, and they didn’t fair too well. You’d better know the difference between a Dalek and a flux capacitor if you plan to try your hand at selling at a comic con.

I’ve been teaching at the Mesa Arts Center for about 15 years now. We joke that I’m more popular than Taylor Swift with how fast my classes sell out! Sometimes you can find me out in the wild teaching marble classes at various glass studios across the country.

Lastly, when I’m not in the studio or at a show, I spend my time playing video games, reading comic books or watching Netflix with my partner in crime, Randy Cribben.