Nancy Ebel

In 2006 I was diagnosed with breast cancer.  It was a difficult couple of years, with surgery followed by chemotherapy, radiation, then more surgery, and an unpleasant reaction to medication, not to mention a challenging marriage.  But there was a silver lining to all this.  Not long before, I had taken my first lampworking class and immediately purchased a kit to set up a home studio.  Chemotherapy gave me a good reason to take some time off, and I used that time well.  I set up a lampworking studio in my house and spent my days learning how to make glass beads.  

I remember bringing a handful of some of my very first beads to show my neighbor.  “This is joy!” she exclaimed with a beatific smile, her hands filled with colorful glass baubles.

That’s what lampworking is for me.  Even in my darkest times, glass brings me joy.  Glass is beauty and color and light, fluid frozen in time.  The wonder of nature provides me with endless inspiration: the grace of birds, the beauty of flowers, the sacred spaces under the trees.   In the deep freeze of winter, I can craft gardens in glass, evoke walks on the seashore, and sculpt the visitors to my bird feeders.  In this way, I stay close to the things I love, even when they are not available.  I live in beauty every day.

Since then I have been in remission for over a decade, have married a much kinder man, and improved my skills at the torch a thousandfold.  And still I am drawn back to the beauty of glass.  I have this quote from Mary Oliver painted on the walls of my studio.

And have you finally figured out what beauty is for?

And have you changed your life?

I know I have changed mine.  You see, there is a goldfinch out at the feeder with perfect, new-minted yellow feathers that practically glow on this gray day.  An image that urges me to create.  A wild creature with whom I can connect through the medium of glass.  I can drop everything and go, finding beauty in everything around me.  Please join me.

Nancy Ebel