Paula was always an artist—a painter and a wildlife artist. Ed has been a machinist for much of his life—he’s machined orthopedic implants at the University of Utah Hospital. Now he’s in charge of a machine shop at the U and also works as facilities manager of one of their buildings.
During the years of their marriage, their interests were often dissimilar, but they always did things together—he helped her collect beanie babies and orchids; she supported him in coaching ball games.
They started learning glass art together five years ago in a Chinook, WA store named M&D (for mother & daughter) Design, where the motto on the door was “Enter a stranger; leave a friend…” They became good friends with the owners, took most of their glass training from them, and then visited them each year to learn more and play in their glass studio.
They took their unique gifts and skills and blended them together to create distinctive works of glass art. Paula had an extreme artistic ability, putting colors, bead designs, elements of silver, and unusual fibers together in ways that made them work, and that especially complemented Ed’s work. She created flat and kilnformed work, mostly fused pieces of glass, and combined her specially-collected fibers with Ed’s lampworked borosilicate pendants. Ed created millefiori patterns with his lampworking and Paula incorporated them into her fused glass jewelry. His silver work on her fused glass earrings and pendants lifted them to another level of craftsmanship and delight in the patron’s eye.
As a machinist, Ed felt that if someone could put something on a piece of paper, he could make it. His professional world is about creating perfection—things have to fit precisely. But working with glass isn’t like that and he was initially all thumbs. His early, clumsy mistakes in working with hot glass were laughable, but he kept learning and improving, and seems now to have accepted the imprecision and beauty of creating glass art.
Ed’s life and glass partner, Paula (1947 to 2010) is no longer with him, and he recently donated to the Guadalupe Schools Dream Auction 2010, some of her work, his work, and especially their work, in her memory.
