At Home in Arkansas: Define your personal style in six words. Cutting Edge Glass: Taking an expectation and tweaking it.
AHIA: What color could you not live without? CEG: I could not live without red in all of its different shades and varieties!
AHIA: Tell us a history or evolution of your current work. CEG: I create stained glass windows because I can’t get enough of the way light is affected when it goes through different colors of glass: it is an obsession! I started with a BA in Art and took a college elective in Stained Glass. I was hooked instantly and went home and started making windows. I was fortunate and got a job right out of college at a local stained glass studio. I worked there full time as an artist for over six years. After I had children and moved to Arkansas, my husband encouraged me to start creating windows on commission again in 2008. Cutting Edge Glass(CEG) was started at the end of 2008 on the back porch of our house. CEG purchased an existing studio in Springdale in 2010 and started operating a retail location from that point on. CEG moved to a new location in January of this year. CEG has had the pleasure of creating windows for the Walmart Visitor’s Center, Circle Of Life Hospice, Highlands Oncology Group, St Elizabeth Seton High School in Baltimore, MD and several churches in the state.
AHIA: What is your ultimate goal for your brand? CEG: My dream is that decorative glass be utilized in everyone’s home in different ways. Sure, there is the traditional look, but there are also many other clean, crisp and light ways to use it. CEG would like to manufacture its own glass in the future, to one day manufacture the glass we need to create the stained glass windows we build.
AHIA: What’s your go-to for a quick burst of inspiration? CEG: My go to for a burst of inspiration is to look at fabric! There are so many great designs in fabric; I love to take parts of those patterns and put them into a window.
AHIA: Which of your tools is most important for your work? CEG: My most important tools are my glass cutter and my engineer husband, who joined CEG full time in 2011. A glass cutter is an amazing tool. Glass isn’t really cut with a cutter; it is scored and then it breaks along the score line. I know the science behind it, but it still amazes me what we can do with glass!
AHIA: What do you want your customers to know about you and your work? CEG: I would love my clients to know how accessible stained glass is. There are options for beautiful glass in every budget! I would also love people to know that stained glass windows can be sealed with clear glass on both sides to protect and preserve the window. This technology has been around for decades, and it seems that it isn’t utilized in Arkansas very much in the stained glass industry.
AHIA: Within your field of work, who is your greatest inspiration? CEG: My greatest inspiration is Louis C. Tiffany, of course! He did so many amazing things in his lifetime; his lamps are gorgeous, but his windows are breathtaking! He created the glass he used in his windows and pioneered so many different ways to use glass. I also love Escher and his work with patterns and geometry. I love how he takes an image and then tweaks it, sometimes it is subtle so it draws you in to the work to find the tweak. The depth that both of these artists explore keeps me intrigued and inspires me to keep discovering what can be done with stained glass.
Thank you, Beth!
