Meet the Artist - Romaine Holley, Glass Artist

"The Ship"- stained glass window made with hand cut
glass pieces wrapped with copper foil and lead
solder.

As a daughter in a military family, Romaine found herself traveling the world. When her stepfather retired from the navy, the family took off their traveling shoes and settled down in his small hometown of Ashburn, Georgia. While finishing high school in Ashburn, Romaine met Don, the love of her life. They married soon after graduation and settled down in Ashburn to start a family. Don launched his own successful construction business. Life was good.

Romaine has always been a self-proclaimed "glass freak." She says she has collected all kinds of glass objects since she was a young child. In 1990, when she was about 27 years old, she took her first stained glass class in a neighboring town. It was like a duck finding water! She was in heaven and took classes for three years to learn all she could about this art form.  She became so good at it that she was hired to teach classes at the studio for the next three years.  In 2000, she finally asked her husband to build her her own studio in their backyard, and so Romaine’s Stained Glass business was born. Her focus was still on copper foil and lead came stained glass windows until 2002 when she took a hot glass class in Winder, Georgia, from glass master, Don McKinney. She came home and had Don add a hot glass room onto her existing studio. She made numerous trips to Winder to take more classes in hot glass, fused glass, and dichroic glass. (Dichroic glass is glass that displays two different colors by undergoing a color change in certain lighting conditions). Her love for the art form lead her to travel across the US taking as many glass classes as she could. She even travelled overseas to Ireland to take a glass bead class that Don McKinney was teaching there! Romaine took her hot glass skills back home and began teaching classes in her studio. Soon, she had Don McKinney and other famous glassblowing artists like Tadashi Torii travelling to Ashburn to teach hot glass classes to her students. Her studio became a flurry of art activity.

"Indian"- stained glass window made with hand cut glass wrapped with copper foil and lead solder

Today, Romaine still teaches some classes in her studio and has guest teachers come on occasion as well. She has even added some new students to her class roster… her five grandchildren who seem to have inherited her “love-for-glass” gene! Romaine focuses most of her time and creativity in her studio working to develop and hone her own artistic skills with glass. She sells her work in local galleries and online, plus she has a steady stream of customers who commission her to design and make glass art for them. Her stained glass windows are extraordinarily beautiful and her fused, hot and dichroic glass pieces are just WOW! She is definitely a wonderfully gifted artist!

"Under the Sea" - sink made from fused, slumped hot glass

"Peacock" - made from fused glass sections with hand cut glass wrapped in copper foil and lead solder. 

"Dragon" - Fused glass sections with hand cut glass pieces wrapped with copper foil and lead solder

"Lady" - Iridized, fused glass

"King Tut" - Romaine won First Place in the Fourth Annual Coating by Sandberg in 2009 with this magnificent fused diachronic hot glass sculpture. It is for sale in her gallery for $10,000.

Paperweight made by blowing and twisting hot glass