Stained-glass artist finds her path by starting over

Date: 13 July 2004
Source: Charlotte.com

Date: 13 July 2004

Yolonda Shimpock-Combs got interested in stained glass in 1985. She taught herself the craft, and four years later, she quit her job as an independent insurance claims adjuster to work for a stained-glass shop in Greensboro.

In 1994, she started her own shop, Celestial Glasworks, working out of her garage evenings and weekends. She quit her job at the studio and closed her shop to care for her husband, Earl Miller, after he had a stroke in 1999. After he died in 2001, she moved to Enochville, near her hometown of Kannapolis. She opened the shop's Kannapolis incarnation almost two years ago. She talked recently with staff writer Christina Rexrode about starting over after her first husband's death.

When Earl passed away, I had no family in Greensboro. My father had died and my mother had had a stroke, and I felt like it was time for me to move back to be close to her. I took the next year off, because I was exhausted from taking care of Earl and I was mourning. I didn't think I would open up the shop again.

I sent out resumes to the corporate world, and I was told I was either overqualified or underqualified. I realized that the corporate world was not where I really wanted to be, and there was something telling me that I needed to get back into glass.

One day I was driving down Dale Earnhardt Boulevard and saw a place for rent and said, "I'm opening a studio, a real studio this time." That was in August 2002. We opened for business the next month.

Anybody who goes into self-employment thinking they're going to have it made in the shade is fooling themselves. I haven't turned a profit yet, but it's absolutely worth it. I like the freedom to explore every facet that the art has. You never learn everything about this business.
600450 Stained-glass artist finds her path by starting over glassonweb.com

See more news about:

Others also read

MORE...

R.O. has designed and produced a powerful Parametric Shape management system
The glass sector has the increasingly widespread requirement of having an unlimited catalogue of parametric shapes and creating new ones in a simple way without being an expert in the field.
Shoaib Akhtar to endorse Asahi Glass
Shoaib Akhtar is going to be back on Indian TV screens. He is going to be featured in the new TV ad campaign for Asahi Glass.
Glass Confusion to start Beginning Fusing Classes
Glass Confusion is starting the New Year with Beginning Fused Glass group classes. The three-week course will be held Wednesdays from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and again from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m.
DisplaySearch: Global glass-substrate capacity to grow 40% each quarter
Worldwide glass-substrate capacity is expected to continue to grow more than 40% each quarter through 2005, as a result of capacity expansion by existing glass-substrate suppliers and new companies joining the market, according to DisplaySearch.
Western Pennsylvania glass industry going the way of steel
Western Pennsylvania’s once-thriving glassmaking industry is dwindling, as did the domestic steel industry and for many of the same reasons: competition and cost.
Barcelona: world’s first ‘UV-breathable’ laminated glass
Architects Robert and Esteve Terradas of Barcelona describe the city’s newly-renovated and expanded (45,000 m2) Science Museum (completed September 2004) as "a living museum that will set new standards in terms of transparency - a very modern construction that will enable the plants and animals inside to really live and breathe." The project was made possible by the use of an innovative grade of DuPont™ SentryGlas© Plus™ structural interlayer that is "UV-breathable, on the flat roof of an Amazonian rainforest exhibit".The UV-breathable 938 m2 laminated glass roof is rectangular in shape.

Add new comment