I was a professional bowler back in 2000 when creativity caught me once again. After a win on the PWBA Tour in St. Louis, I visited a bead store, made a necklace (which included some lampwork,) and I was hooked on jewelry-making. Even made a great side business on the road selling my pieces to various competitors, fans, and spectators. One fateful week in Atlanta, the bowling center in Marietta was parked next to a wonderful bead store. I spent my earning that week on beads, but also on a book called “Glass Beadmaking” by Cindy Jenkins. I practiced lampworking techniques I saw in the photos for four months while continuing to compete on the road. When we returned home for the season, we bought a new house, and I bought the torch, kiln, and a bit of glass and got started.
At this time in 2000 in Central Florida there were very few beadmakers. I can name only one other woman in Brevard County that was making beads. I travelled back to Marietta Georgia for a class with Kristina Logan, and to Asheville, North Carolina for classes with Jim Smircich.
Lampworking came on the road with me in the motorhome while I competed in my bowling. I set up a portable studio from a folding table outside the motorhome, behind the bowling center, wherever I could find power and a bit of shade. A few weeks my art became the topic of human interest stories while marketing the PWBA in town. Here’s a photo from a newspaper article while on the road:
I met various lampworkers all over the country, and gained wonderful advice and inspiration. It comforted me September 11, 2001. I did well on Ebay as Kimbocreations. It became an obsession. So much so my bowling was somewhat affected.
I made an important decision at the start of the 2002 Tournament season to leave my glass at home. My heart and head needed to be with my bowling, and I was distracted. For the next two years I only made beads for me and while on break from my “real job”. I had also started doing some bead shows, and beadmaking had lost its soul to me and had become more about what was “in fashion” at the moment. This is not why I chose to make beads. I had to find myself again.
In the Fall 2003, our PWBA Tour abruptly came to a halt and closed its doors. I was without a bowling job. I had begun to think about what I would do with myself “after bowling” anyway. At 35, I had won many major titles and had accomplished just about everything in the sport of bowling. January 2004 I made a few beads and started my “next” career: I first completed EMT-B, then paramedic school. I then completed nursing school. In June, 2007, I became a Registered Nurse, and I currently work in a local hospital ICU. School is not over…I am back to school at the University of South Florida in their Family Nurse Practitioner Program, set to receive my Masters in Nursing in the Fall 2010.
The break away from beadmaking was a needed thing, but I have recently returned to find that in just a few years the artists have really pushed each other to advance lampworking. There are amazing tools, glass, techniques that challenge me to grow artistically as well. I am working in my glass studio/study space regularly now.
