Art Fest Spotlight: Heart of Glass

Living on a secluded island with a beautiful coast is a dream for any crazed beach lover, but for stained-glass artist Laurel Johns, it's reality.

"I love being a hermit," she said. "An artist hermit on an island."

Seven years ago, she convinced her husband to build their home on Hird Island, a barrier island in south Georgia where travelers can only get there by either boat or plane.

Even though she doesn't live there year-round (she and her husband spend four months of the year at their second home in Tenants Harbor, Maine), Johns also has her own art studio on Hird where she runs her one-woman business, Grey Dog Studio.

Johns and her business return to the (Saturday and Sunday at ) for her third year as an arts vendor. Creating whimsical, coastal-themed recycled glass art which she calls "tumbled island" glass, she's back with stained glass mosaic windows, suncatchers, nightlights and serving utensils.

Johns started Grey Dog in 2001, naming it after her dog Merrick who passed away earlier this year. She discovered her love for glass staining while earning her BFA in painting from the University of Georgia. She only took the staining glass class as a hobby, but she ended up falling in love with it.

"I really loved painting, but I felt like with stained glass you get even more," she said. "You get a three-dimensional side of artwork with the color, and I love the way the light [hits it]. You just get so many different colors from the light, whether it's hitting the glass or coming through the glass."

Today, Grey Dog's creations are sold in 44 galleries and shops in 10 states and on Etsy.com, with her most popular items being the stained glass mosaic windows and the serving utensils. She's been featured in Waters Edge magazine and was named Artist of the Year at the Belfast Art Show in 2010 in Maine.

She also participates in about two dozens art shows and festivals every year, the Norcross Art Fest being one that she absolutely loves.

"I come back every year because they, hands down, treat their artists better than any other show," she said. "They focus on artists whose creations, no matter the medium, are truly unique, colorful and whimsical. I'm always bringing artwork home from this show!"

Her mother, Janice Kirkland, is also featured in the festival with her company, Gnome and Garden. As a ceramic artist of gnomes, garden signs and other yard art, Kirkland actually influenced her daughter's artsy side early-on when she turned the family dining room into a ceramic studio while they lived in St. Marys, Ga.

Johns' art tends to be a less-messy medium than her mother's ceramics. Johns mainly uses scrap glass, broken bottles and old window frames that she "tumbles" upon, and she works strictly with cold, never hot, glass to create her pieces.

Most of her work is created through a nontraditional technique called a stained glass mosaic, as opposed to the traditional copper foil technique. For example, with her windows, the mosaic involves gluing stained glass to an existing window and finishing it with sanded floor grout, which makes the pieces compatible with weather conditions and outdoor wear.

"It’s almost like a tile floor. It repels water and can take the weather," she said, adding that it's also good when she moves her work from the island to the mainland.

The stained glass mosaics are still among Johns' favorite pieces in her collection, even after reeling them out for 11 years. "I use different colors and different glass, and I never use patterns, so each one is always going to be unique and different," she said.

With an art background from her early childhood to her BFA from UGA, Johns continues to be inspired even to this day. And she has her home on Hird island to thank for much of that, whether it's from the ocean breeze or her 174-piece lobster-buoy tree collection.

"It's the nature I see around me, just living on the island and having the water right in front of my studio," she said. "[Having] the wildlife, the dolphins, the fish and just the ocean life that I see around me... it's very inspirational."