Introducing Artist Kimberly Lyon

Tags

art tour, Casco, free event, fused glass, jewelry, northeastern wisconsin, recycled glass, stained glass, studio tour

So, here it is a week before the Tour and the final artist is being introduced. I always leave myself for last, that way I make sure everyone else is posted. I’m Kimberly Lyon and have been doing the Tour since the start 10 years ago. The Tour was kind of a “dream come true”, since another artist and I had talked about it for a number of years, but didn’t know how to make it happen. Then I heard that the Northeastern WI Arts Council was starting this up and I was hooked. In addition to being on the Tour for all 10 years, I have also been on the Planning Committee for 9 years and Chair for the last 4. It has been an honor to work with such a wonderful group of artists. Change may be coming, so keep tuned for what the future will hold. Let’s just hope that the next 10 years are as exciting as the first 10! Hope to see you next weekend!!

Kimberly Lyon

Kimberly Lyon first began exploring and working with glass in 1989, while employed as a research biochemist in New York. She had always admired many types of glass, including stained, torch-worked and blown, but had focused on science rather than art or craft until this time. A change in work hours led Kimberly to the local craft store where she found some glass, tools and a book on stained glass techniques to fill a few free hours and make some stained glass pieces for herself. Her first pieces were created using the copper-foil stained glass methods, learned from that first book and, later, videos and experimentation. Kiln-worked glass was beginning to re-emerge as a respected glass art form around this time, and Kimberly found it to be an intriguing and less common technique to use to achieve some of the designs she envisioned. At this point, she was just interested in creating glass pieces for herself and as gifts, but friends coerced her into showing her work at art fairs, where it was well received. When she and her husband moved to Wisconsin in 1992, Kimberly left the laboratory behind and opened Ladybug Glass Studio, creating original stained and fused glass items, which have been sold at galleries and art fairs around the Midwest. She has been commissioned to create many stained glass panels for residences and businesses, as well as kiln-worked pieces for corporate gifts. Her latest work involves fusing different types of glass in layers to achieve multidimensional painting-like panels. Inspiration for these pieces comes from her life experiences and her rural surroundings.

“I love playing with glass – it has so many forms and can be used in so many different ways. The way that light and glass mix is always exciting. I enjoy creating pieces that look completely different in changing light conditions. It is almost as if the glass has a life of it’s own. Often, I have created a piece thinking it will look it’s best with reflected light, only to find that transmitted light coming through it gives at least as wonderful a finish. My goal is to create glass pieces that make people smile, maybe reminding them of a special time in their life.”