When you meet B Skinner, you will agree she is one of the warmest people you will have ever met – ideal to own a company called Warm Glass Wonder. “I consider myself to be one of the luckiest people on the planet. I absolutely love my life,” she said – and you get that sense from her.

If you believe in such things, maybe it’s a Hoosier aura. “Undoubtedly, I have been strongly impacted by my lush surroundings,” she said. “We live in a beautiful place with great natural beauty. I feel, though, that being a Hoosier is more than our geographical location. I think we are a pragmatic, unassuming people who don’t care for pretense. We believe in focusing, working hard and always doing our best. I think those characteristics have had a huge impact on my desire and ability to become a successful, self-sustaining artist.” And for many years, that is what Beverly Skinner, her friends call her “B,” and you can, too, has been.

“I went from a background in glaze formulation in a commercial ceramics setting to painting, which was color, color, color!” she said. “Then I moved to glass, which I find to be the perfect blend of all three. I love knowing what different minerals are doing at different temperatures in the kiln, and I get to play with color, color, color! with light as an inherent property of glass.”

B’s use of light is an aspect she leverages heavily to distinguish her work. “I use a great deal of clear glass in my designs to welcome the outside in, instead of walling it out,” she said. “I love the playfulness the integration brings to my designs.”

Another aspect that makes her work unique is the creation of multiple, connected panels to delineate her designs and to allow a moment for the eye to pause while viewing the complete piece. “This visual rest can become a striking element in the overall design,” she said. “By lowering the temperature at which I fuse, I also can control the texture and dimension of the work to add a greater degree of clarity and complexity to the design.”

Indiana has a deep history in glassmaking, and B said she applied to Indiana Artisan to both push and test herself. “I wanted to see if my work was good enough to become part of this brand that represents the highest-quality art created in Indiana today and, if it was, that would challenge me to go further, deeper into glass,” she said.

When asked what inspires such unique and beautiful glasswork, B said, “The happiness of it. It sounds so simple, almost too simple, but my work makes people smile, and I am absolutely goofy in love with making people smile. How’s that for a formal artist’s statement?” It’s ideal, and particularly ideal for this friendly, can-do artist behind Warm Glass Wonder.

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ARTIST'S STATEMENT

“It sounds so simple, almost too simple, but my work makes people smile and I am absolutely goofy in love with making people smile. How’s that for a formal artist’s statement?”