After a number of years in the business world, Kate’s creative side kicked in with her decision that mixing creativity and accounting was probably not a good idea. Kate began studying stained glass in San Francisco before moving to the Los Angeles area where she taught at Harbor College. There, Kate designed and completed commissions for individual clients before moving on to Dallas where she also taught and created commissions for architects and designers.

Upon moving to Evergreen, Kate continued commission work but

started using etched and carved glass in her designs. Studying sandblasting under Kathy Bradford and Butch Young, both nationally known glass artists, opened new techniques and horizons to her artwork. Top honors in a number of juried art shows in both leaded and etched glass soon followed.

Kate’s designs are sandblasted in multiple stages to create the dimensional, layering effect. Sandblasting is a rather time consuming process as all steps are done by hand. A rubberized type of resist is placed on the glass and then the design is drawn on the resist. The design is then cut out by hand with an exacto knife. The piece is then moved into the blasting room where each part of the design is blasted individually to give the varying depths and reality to the piece.