Vicki Vesel has been a Geauga County resident for over 30 years. She enjoys the nature and the outdoors. She has filled her garden with an extensive collection of flowers that attract both birds and butterflies. She’s also an avid cyclist and frequents the local bike trials. Vicki discovered her passion for stained glass in 2009 when she wanted to design a large half circle window to complete a kitchen remodel in her century home. A local studio provided the instruction and Vicki spent six months creating her window.

 

Over the next two years she helped out at the studio giving her the opportunity to practice and sharpen her skills. Vicki found that stained glass fueled her creative spirit. She sought out additional learning opportunities then started making stained glass gifts, selling at craft shows, teaching stained glass classes and creating commissioned art. Vicki works mostly in the copper foil method of stained glass because it allows her to create with greater detail. Each piece of glass is hand cut then smoothed on the grinder. Adhesive backed copper foil is applied to all the pieces, they are placed next to each other and soldered together. For designs with large pieces of glass or bevels she may use the lead channel method. In this method the glass is set in lead channel and the sections of channel are soldered at the joints.

 

Vicki is inspired by nature but sometimes finds herself gravitating to a particular piece of glass and designs to showcase the texture, color or pattern of the glass. She also likes to stretch her talents and create three dimensional glass art. One of the challenges in working with glass is that you never really know how a creation will look until it’s done and you can see it with light streaming through the piece. Stained glass will look different depending on what is outside behind the piece and the intensity of transmitted light. Thus glass art is constantly changing.