Daily Inspiration: Meet Cynthia Buckley

Today we’d like to introduce you to Cynthia Buckley. 

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
It’s kind of funny but as I walked to school each day I would stop to pick up shiny pieces of mica and put them in my pockets. Anything shiny attracted me like a magpie! I have always loved to draw, started taking private art lessons in elementary school, have really never stopped taking art classes, and now teach glass art.. After a corporate career in Boston, my husband and I retired to Cape Cod. I signed up for a beginner stained glass class and fell in love with it. I had taken classes in all types of art over my lifetime but the glass was something really unique.

You can do so much with glass in all its forms and it’s a medium with such a variety of disciplines. Since that first stained glass class, I have taken classes in glassblowing, fusing, sandblasting, flameworking, etching, and hot glass sculpture in so many places including the Corning Museum of Glass. Although I loved them all, I kept coming back to stained glass. I could draw a design on graph paper, make it in glass and then see it change with the light. Unlike a painting, glass is dynamic and can even through light and color across a room! How cool is that? 

I set up a stained glass studio in our home back on the Cape as I learned and grew in my art then after we moved to the Low Country I set up a small studio in a large collective of artists in downtown Beaufort. I am now in the process of moving my studio to a larger space which is exciting! Teaching stained glass is so much fun! I began teaching private lessons in my studio then added group lessons as an instructor at both the Art League Academy on Hilton Head and the Society of Bluffton Artists. 

My work has been exhibited in several art exhibitions on the east coast over the years and most recently at the Center for the Arts at the University of South Carolina and Port Royal Sound Maritime Center. I also participate in local art shows, festivals, and public glass demonstrations where people love to see a glass artist in action, especially the kids. 

I concentrate my work now on creating stained glass in the traditional Tiffany copper foil method as it is the work I most enjoy. I accept a limited number of commissions to allow time for my own creative work and teaching others. As a glass artist, I feel a deep responsibility to carry on this centuries-old form of art and to teach my students using traditional tools and methods as I was taught. 

My work is truly handmade and handcrafted so each piece that I create takes time. There always seems to be a queue of work but people are willing to wait because I think they appreciate having one artist creating a beautiful piece of art just for them “from pencil to polish”. 

I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
Mastering your art takes time and as a glass artist it can take many years. Glass art is challenging. What other type of art can you burn yourself, cut yourself and even leave your DNA in a piece? Yes, glass artists are a different breed and when we meet each other we always feel like immediate best friends. 

What quality or characteristic do you feel is most important to your success?
Having patience. It takes a lot of time to create even a small item of stained glass. There are so many steps involved, designing, cutting out, or transferring a pattern, selecting and cutting glass, grinding each piece, copper foiling, tack then bead soldering, applying patina, several stages of cleaning, and finally finish, framing, and polish. It’s a lot of work but when a piece has been labored over and is held to the light it makes it all worthwhile. 

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.southernskyglassstudio.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/southernskyglassstudio
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/southernskyglassstudio
• Other: www.linktr.ee/southernskyglass