A few years ago I was very busy working my way up the career ladder, with no time for myself, or anyone and anything else. Working all hours and sitting in large traffic jams on the highways and by-ways of this lovely country of ours! I had been doing it for years. All my working life (a very long time!)

 

Then along came a major life changing experience (not totally unexpected, but I hadn’t planned for it to happen at that particular time!!!). And with it a huge pressure to be creative!

One day, whilst walking along a street market, I came across a stall selling glass art jewellery, and WHAM! I fell in love with the stuff instantly. Right there and then I spent a huge amount of money I couldn’t really afford on a beautiful Pink Dichroic piece and a chain! And that was it, I was hooked, an instant dichroholic!

The colour! The sparkle! The shapes! And Oh! What wonderful patterns!

 

After that I began looking around on the internet to find places where I could feed my addiction. And lo-and-behold, discovered Ebay. At that time there were only a few people in the UK selling dichroic and art glass jewellery on Ebay, most of the sellers were in the US. It used to drive me insane waiting for a piece I’d bought to turn up in the post!

But during my ever increasingly far reaching searches I would start to come across people selling the glass itself or kilns or tools for glass art. It started me thinking! And thinking! And thinking! It just seemed all so perfect. It fed my dichroholism! And it fed my huge desire to be creative!

 

So, I went out and bought a small kiln and a supply of dichroic and fusing glass and a couple of books and got to work setting up my studio with what I can only describe now as naive excitement! For the first month or so the pieces I turned out were, well frankly, rubbish! Unsaleable, and worse for me, unwearable!!! On occasions the tears of bitter disappointment would roll down my cheeks unabated, to drip onto the burnt out, over fused, mis-shapen, badly coloured pieces I had made. My best friend would look at them and be very kind and say they were beautiful or striking. But I knew they were rubbish!

 

Gradually however, I began to make better and better pieces. The success rate went up by degree’s and I wasn’t wasting quite so much of that beautiful glass I would sit and stare at for hours when it arrived!

 

I began selling on Ebay and had some success. I was amazed by my customers comments about pieces I HAD MADE! This spurred me on and only increased my desire to make more and more perfect pieces (in my eyes none of my pieces are perfect!! Ever!!). Since then I haven’t looked back. Having got the hang of the basics other things just seemed to follow on naturally, the bracelets, the earrings, the rings, the occasional glass art piece.

 

And now? Well, I still sit and stare at the glass when it arrives in the post or by courier! I’m still fascinated by the colours and shapes and those amazing patterns! I still sell on Ebay. I’ve started the web site! I go to Craft Fairs and Exhibitions! I still wear those original pieces that I bought in the street market! And . . . I’m still striving for perfection!