About myself

Frying pan to fire…after working as a wedding and portrait photographer for 25 years I packed up by bags and went to the CIA (Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, NY) for their culinary degree program. It was a chance in a lifetime to fulfill a dream of the best culinary education possible…awesome experience. I had previously spent four weeks at a culinary program in Beijing and had lovedthat. After school I spent the next 10 years cooking…and still cooking. But, about five years ago, my daughter started working with glass. I went to look over her shoulder at herclass with Leah Fairbanks and Kim Osibin. Hooked! From the fire on the stove to the fire for the glass…

So now, Marie and I both work on the glass. I am very lucky Marie and I share the love of glass…she certainly helps me a lot and answers all the questions that I forgot the answers to. We share our house with Pepper (Doddlebug) our Maltese who is seven. It is really fun. When we have been lucky enough to take classes together we can share tools and I can ask her questions to things I have missed.

We live here in the deep South…hot and humid in the summer. Besides the glass we like to travel and have been lucky enough to have taken some great trips together…Germany, Paris, London and Beijing. In the past I have had the good fortune to even travel across the desert from Algeria to Niger…to Egypt, …of course there are still places to go and things to see…just isn’t time enough lately, but still have plans to see more. I’ve also spent the past 17 years as an active member of the US Coast Guard Auxiliary..although will probably retire in the near future. Sold the boat about three years ago…and with the gas today…that’s a plus although I still miss the freedom. Did also work as a marine’ surveyor’s assistant for about three years…did I say varied background?

For now, I just want to work on the glass…getting better and better. I want to be able to do the same thing twice if I want to and to be able to remember from one time to the next what I did the last time…what color I used and how I created one effect and how to do it again. Marie and I are planning on moving our glass from the basement to my defunct photo studio where we will have more space, more light and a better ventilation system. We have been in the same house for 37 years…so better organization is certainly in our future.

The glass is so fantastic, and I have learned a lot from my teachers as well as my glass friends in the classes, the Southern Flames and the ISGB. We are looking forward to working with boro and bullseye..all the glasses are so different..even have done some of the Japanese glass..that has beautiful colors and works really well on the hothead

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