Pacific Northwest ArtFire Guild
Monday, March 5, 2012
Studio Spotlight – Steider Studios
After you’ve gotten to know to Linda a little better, then I would encourage you to go check out her ArtFire shop and her blog. I should mention, too, that in addition to her beautiful glass work, Linda is a talented photographer as well.
How did you get started as a glass artist and when did you get started?
I was a fiber artist curating a show at my local gallery & one of the artists asked me “If you like glass so much, why aren’t you working with it?” It had never occurred to me that I could! I went to his studio, learned how to work on a torch and my husband, fearing a torch set up in my fiber studio bought a kiln for my birthday. I then went to Bullseye Glass in Portland and learned everything they could teach me in the mid 90’s.(My fiber career spanned back to high school where my teachers bought my tie dyed macrame belts. At 16, I was selling at outdoor venues and at 30 I was in galleries and gift shops with art quilts and soft sculptured dolls. Just when I was starting to get noticed nationally, I switched gears as I fell in love with glass and literally had to start my art career all over with my new medium.)
I daydream. I meditatively pull weeds. I drive from the eastern edge of the gorge into Portland, a very inspiring landscape. These are where ideas pop into my head and begin to flow. Sometimes it’s a visual image of a finished piece. More often it’s a word or feeling that I try to figure out how to form with glass. I scribble a sketch into my ever present sketchpad, then fine tune it at the first opportunity in my studio.
The next phase is making a prototype or two or three. These prototypes turn into a series. I try to fully explore each idea before moving on to the next project.
to work with?
I was honored to be one of the artists chosen for Flow Magazine’s ‘7th Annual Gallery of Women in Glass’ Winter 2011 issue that just came out in December.I teach at national glass conferences and for glass studios across the country. My favorite venue is in Alaska where I’ve been invited to teach again for the third year in a row. My courses are mostly specific to working with powdered glass, with basic design & color theory thrown in from time to time. I’m a lucky woman, fortunate enough to be living out my dream life in a gorgeous setting.
If you go to Maryhill Museum, I hope you’ll take a look at the Windy Walk fence; you’ll see the colorful glass inserts that I made.
I market ‘Steider Studios Glass Medium’, a binder and thickening agent that turns powdered glass into paste (commonly called glass clay) that can be sculpted similar to polymer clay. It’s great for making buttons or small sculptures.
My favorite Arts in Education project was for Providence Hood River Memorial Hospital. I led a group of high school students for two months through the process of making glass tiles, while thinking about the concept of ‘healing’. Seventy five tiles were installed in five large panels at Providence Hood River Memorial Hospital in Hood River, OR
What is your favorite piece and why?
- Website: http://www.steiderstudios.com
- ArtFire Studio: http://www.artfire.com/users/SteiderStudios
- Blog: https://steiderstudios.wordpress.com/
- FaceBook: http://www.facebook.com/SteiderStudios
- Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/41121903@N08/
- Twitter: http://twitter.com/SteiderStudios
- Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/steiderstudios/
- Linked In: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/linda-steider/12/281/b86
Posted for the Pacific Northwest ArtFire Guild by: Linda Landig