(gentle music) - I am a stained glass mosaic artist, but I also dabble in multimedia mosaics.

I have been a mosaic artist for approximately 30 years, and it started with seeing a stepping stone in a wayside rest.

Stained glass is the type of glass that you see in your church window, so it allows light inside.

But the very cool thing about stained glass is it will also reflect light to you.

So the process is making all kinds of little itty bitty pieces and putting 'em all back together again into a pattern or design or imagery.

And I like to use stained glass as my primary medium, but then I also bring in natural items such as rocks, driftwood, seashells, just different things to give it some texture.

While I have a piece on the counter behind me that I've started, and it started with a picture.

And I take a piece of tracing paper and lay it over the picture, draw out the main lines of the imagery, then find a copy machine and start blowing it up and making it different sizes.

Sometimes I'll shrink it, sometimes I'll enlarge it.

Sometimes I'll only enlarge a portion of it.

And then it's to start picking the glass out of an assortment of colors to try to decide what mood are you trying to create.

And then you start cutting it, scoring, cutting, chipping, and then you start putting it back together piece by piece, gluing.

And finally, once everything's in place and that's ready, you may do a final grout, and then we just clean it and seal it, frame it if it needs to be framed, and then it's ready for your home.

Seems like most of my artwork is around nature.

I'm more comfortable working with nature.

I've been really dabbling in a lot of abstract, but even the abstracts are based on colors in nature.

One of the pieces that I just finished is 20 little five-by-sevens.

They're seasons, so it's the colors of the seasons as they transpire from one season into the next.

And that one still is all about the colors of nature.

My favorite part is probably the actual just cutting.

And when I get a cut to go just the perfect way, it flows, it comes across the line, and it just cracks right down the line where you want it and separates.

Those are probably my favorite moments, 'cause I'm like, whew, look at that cut I just did, that was pretty great.

Everything is hand-cut now completely, either with a chipper, which creates little chips of glass to work with, or slivers of glass, or we'll score major shape.

It's just a glass score.

It creates a little scratch in the glass, and then you use a breaking pliers to apply the correct pressure to make it break.

And just depending on what I'm doing that day and how I'm feeling, sometimes it breaks really nicely.

And sometimes you just put all your tools down, and you go find something else to do.

I also use a grinder to get some of those shapes, or we call 'em glass boogers, where there's little sharp points or little bumps that you wanna take off.

We'll use that.

You've also got breaking pliers and running pliers, and there are just a plethora of tools available to try to make sure your edges get to where you need them to be.

I know I've completed a piece of work when, one, I'm satisfied with how it looks, but also I always have a size in mind.

I always start with a frame.

I went to Philadelphia on a grant from the Northwest Arts Council to study public art, and Bonnie Fitzgerald, the instructor there, said, start at home.

So I came back to Badger, thinking about trying to put together something about the history of our community.

The Heritage Wall in Badger is a 24 foot by 10 foot, stained glass mosaic wall.

We had it inside a building on Main Street, and that way the community could come in, and they could work on it.

And I would just give them an area and a bucket of already cut glass and said, you know, fill this piece, fill this spot in this map.

The mood of my artwork often goes with what mood I'm in or what colors I'm working with.

If you're working with yellows and reds and oranges, it's gonna be a much brighter, upbeat piece.

The piece I'm working on right now is a dark piece because it was shot at sunset, so you're working in a lot of dark, dark blues.

So it's getting brighter.

And then down here it's gonna get really orange, and then it's gonna get really dark again.

When people come to see my art, I want them to feel something.

I want them to be able to come away with a, just a calmness or a quirky smile.

I like to hide things in my artwork.

It's just like the Heritage Wall, you know?

Unless you walk up to it, you don't see Otis that's an inch and a half high sitting below the porch, or the little chickens over on the far side.

There's a lot more to it than what you first glance at.

And what's interesting at art shows is people will make a quick lap, and then they'll start circling back.

And I like to see the ones that have made like three or four trips past my booth 'cause something has caught their eye.

And then they'll finally engage with you so that you can visit with them about the process.

The fact that art can be interactive, I think, is very, very important.

(gentle music) - [Announcer] Funded by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund with money from the vote of the people of Minnesota on November 4th, 2008, and by the members of Prairie Public.