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Chris Kellum (aka SeedyKay)

Artist's Bio

I first witnessed lampworking in the dim basement of a friendís house in 1997. I was fascinated. A couple years later, I found myself loitering around the studio at Colored Sands Glass in Ft Wayne, IN almost daily. I would use my lunch hour from my job managing the warehouse at a music equipment retailer to go see my friends blowing glass. I watched Colored Sands grow from just an artistsí studio to a national distributor of lampworking supplies. By early 2004, the owner of the company, Todd Taylor, found that he was so busy filling customer orders that he was missing out on his torch time. Meanwhile, I had had enough of the corporate environment Iíd spent almost a decade of my life in. So Todd hired me to take care of his customers so that he could get back to being an artist. We traveled to the GAS conference in New Orleans in June of 2004, and I got a great introduction into the glass industry. In the blink of an eye, my first year with the company had flown by, and I had barely even had time to melt enough glass to pull a stringer. In April of 2005, I finally bellied up to the torch and started making pendants, using only glass from the accumulating scrap pile in the studio. That saying about one manís trash being another manís treasure? So true for me. And then it was onÖI would come in early, stay late, and come in on weekends to get some torch time.

That summer, during a visit to my sisterís for dinner, she inspired me with a cool product idea. We were hanging out in her kitchen, and I was checking out this little pottery spoon rest she had on her oven. She said ìHey, think you could make a glass spoon rest?î And so I tried. They kept getting bigger and better, and I was having a great time making them! Soon enough I started making them big enough to put ridges on them and call them soap dishes. I find the entire process invigorating for mind and body, & I canít wait until I figure out what comes next for meÖ