Sunday's Featured Artist

Marcy Lamberson

I love to learn about different artists and their roots. So the next few Sunday's will be dedicated to Featured Artist interviews so we can take a peek inside some of the artists I admire. Its fasinating how much you can find in common with people who share your interests and how much you can learn from them. We all have stories to tell that help others to see our work in a new light. To know someone is to love them.....and their work. So I am very pleased to introduce you to Marcy Lamberson a.k.a Studio Marcy. I know you will just love her :)

Dear Studio Marcy,

How did you get started and how long have you been making beads?

I've been making beads for about 8 years now, which has flown by. I thought I wanted to blow glass with the big equipment, but after getting my toes wet with lampwork, I decided that I'd get to melt more glass with a torch I could use in my own home. I painted watercolors prior to it and love the luminosity that both mediums embrace.

Where do you sell your work? Is there a particular venue that seems to be most successful for you?
I sell my work on etsy. I have had the most success on it. I tried Artfire and a few others and didn't enjoy going back and forth between them.

Is this full time or part time work?
Technically I am a full time flameworker, however, facebook seems to have crept into my life pretty strongly. I'm trying to kick the habit and make it less important. (It's just so much fun!)

What is your biggest challenge?
My biggest challenge is marketing myself. I love making the beads but telling everyone to by my beads is the hardest. I know they're fun, whimsical beads, but I have a hard time telling folks about them.

What are you most proud of?
I have a lot that I'm proud of- I teach glass to a lot of people and seeing the joy that they get from it, really makes me proud. And also that I've won two torches from contests is pretty sweet too. I've had pieces in museums around the country and been chosen for some pretty nice honors. I have glass displayed in other countries as well.

What are your goals? Where do you see yourself in 3, 5, 10 years?
My goals are shorter term. Each year I pick a few areas that I really want to focus on. For example, this year I want to improve in human forms and faces. I like the childlike ones I make for etsy, but I want to start a gallery line of glass that has a mor sophisticated look too. So thats this year's major goal.

What has the most influence in your work and who do you admire?
My influence is the world around me and my customers. I look at life rather skewed. I see chubby cheeked babies and fluffy dogs and think they look like beads. I see wizened faces or colorful plants and mentally figure out how I would make them with glass. And I love custom orders because each time a customer requests something I haven't made before, it's like my own private art puzzle that I get to solve and create at the same time.

Three words that describe you are;
A. Joyful, B. Creative, C. Humorous (ha, ha, luckily it wasn't 4 or I would have included "lousy housekeeper".)

Well, I certainly hope you will stop over to Marcy's etsy shop and check out her work. I'm hoping to get my two silly dogs made into beads sometime soon!