WindHorse Arts
Kristan gets to sit down with Alison Thibault, the owner and founder of WindHorse Arts and the winner of the Makers of Maine pitch competition I did a while back. Thanks again to David Libby from Town and Country Federal Credit Union and Sabina Hitchen, from Press For Success for being the judges of the competition. Alison won the competition with over 170 votes. She has quite the story as her craft is color. She takes color and transforms it into pieces of glass jewelry. When you walk into Alison’s shop each piece shines as the sun shines through the windows.
“I'm able to make color by working with glass and the glass that I work with is fused dichroic glass, which I work in a kiln. But what really got me started was I had a pair of earrings that my Mom had given me years ago and I lost one. I was inspired to make a match for that earring at the same time that I was looking for a new way to find work to walk through my day,” said Alison.
Alison was a commercial banker in Northern Virginia and she found that a nine-to-five job wasn’t her calling. Her mother gave her a book called The Artists Way by Julia Cameron and this really opened her eyes to get into a more creative hobby which has now turned into her full-time job. She also has a family filled with creatives and she never thought she would go in a similar direction as her family members.
“I never considered myself that person until I went through this process and that broadened what I was going to look for, as far as work. So then I started thinking, well, maybe I could write the great American novel, or I could, you know, make a line of note cards, and it just started me on a different path. So it wasn't a big stretch when I did lose that earring and I was driven to make a match for it. As I was doing that, and I started the process of learning how to make fused glass, I would wear my work, because that was the point. People started asking to buy the work right off of me. So I listened. And I went, you know, I, I did a few things that my banking background helped me with, I figured out the cost analysis of the process. Was this something that I was going to be able to actually make a living at? The answer was, yes,” said Alison.
As Kristan walked through Alison’s shop and took in each station of the crafting process, she thought there was no way she could do the process herself. Alison has turned so many colors into beautiful works of glass.
“When I first started, I determined that it was fused dichroic glass, the dichroic is an actual coating on the middle layer of glass that gives it that very subtle iridescent a coloring in dichroic actually means reflected and transmitted. So you have that shift in color between what is reflected and what's transmitted. I have access to around 55 different dichroic colors and I have access to 175 base colors. So when I first started, I was going to just take the clear, and the dichroic or the clear the black and the dichroic, and just work with those. Basically, the mechanics of the process is every piece has three or four layers of glass. Depending on which order I put the layers in, and which colors I choose is what gives me that variety of color. So when I first started I just did clear and black and they were beautiful. But I had a young woman come into my studio space in Bucksport and she kind of sealed the deal for why I've always loved having the space be both retail and studio because she started the process that I continue to this day of collaborating with my customers. So Sue walked in and she wanted me to match the Amethyst of her grandmother's ring that she was wearing. That was my first venture into going outside that clear and black palette of colors and that opened up the universe… today because I'm definitely a systems and organized person to date, I've made 193 different colors,” says Alison.
Alison also talks about how she moved to Vinalhaven and opened her storefront on the main street, how she has a passion for poetry and how that is weaved into her business, what she plans to do over the next five years with her business, and much more. Tune in to Alison’s episode of the podcast to learn more about her craft of color.
To learn more about Alison’s business click here, https://www.windhorsearts.com/.