Featured Artist: Janet Van Fleet

I am a retired teacher. Somewhere in the midst of teaching, I fell in love with glass. Before teaching, oil painting was my passion. That dwindled during my teaching years. With glass, I looked forward to coming home after a challenging day at school to take a piece of glass out of the kiln and see my creation magically transformed into a piece of beautiful light. That joy and love of creating has continued and now 20+ years later I’m enjoying creating as my primary job while retired.

With my oil painting and drawing experience, I naturally gravitated toward painting with glass. While I haven’t officially taught glass classes, I have shared my knowledge with others in my studio. And who knows, teaching might be the next step.

I believe glass is the ultimate medium in art…the light of our world…connecting heaven and earth. The joy of seeing glass transform into something new and even more beautiful is indescribable. The challenge is letting go of expectations and allowing the glass to transform. I’m the tool that manipulates it, but ultimately, glass creates the results.