Kitty Hudson Cawley
Kitty Hudson Cawley
 

 

My Journey Into Glass

After spending several years discovering a love for photography (see below), my imagination was caught by the idea of turning my photographs into glass mosaics. Inspired by the stained glass work of Scott Wilcox, my cousin and extraordinary artist, I created stained glass mosaics on mirrored backings. The sunlight moves through the front surface of the stained glass picture, then the mirrored surface catches sunlight and reflects it out, passing the light through the stained glass a second time. The effect is mesmerizing: sparkling colors dance and play on the mosaic as the sun moves across the sky. Eventually, I made a natural leap from mosaics to the art of glass fusing, as both involve cutting and forming designs with stained glass. The new attraction I found in glass fusing is the amazing transformative energy of heat. The beauty, elegance, and mystery of fused glass moves me; there’s something that happens in the depth of the colors, the fluidity of the shape, and the dancing of the light that takes my breath away.

 

An Artists Awakening - Where it began

It was October 2012 when it dawned on me that I had been living a fairly painful life in the years since my husband’s dementia diagnosis. I coped well for a long time by actively focusing on my blessings...such as the love of my husband, the peace in our home, and the simplicity of our routines, but somehow the four-year mark got under my skin. I became increasing aware that, although my husband was experiencing the heaviest load, the mantle on my shoulders was also very heavy and getting heavier. It became clear that the heaviness would continue for quite a while and I began to feel overwhelmingly sad.

In early November 2012, I was driving from Sacramento to Davis across the causeway, the same road I’d traveled for thirty-plus years since coming to UC Davis as a freshman. As usual, cars were flying along beside me. As usual, I glanced over and noticed the wetlands to my left. And as usual, I pulled my eyes back to the road. But on this trip across the causeway, a tug of war started: road…wetlands…road…wetlands…road. I started asking myself, “What is OUT there?” I was headed home. I had lots of things to do, but my wondering took over. I neared the end of the causeway, moved into the right-hand lane and pulled off at the exit.

Long story short, I ended up in an empty dirt parking lot out in the middle of the Yolo Wetlands. I sat there in my car with the windows up looking around me. Eventually, I realized I could roll my windows down. And once I had done that, I got to thinking that if I really wanted to experience this space, it wasn’t enough just to roll the windows down…I needed to get out of the car.

I climbed out and noticed that the buzz of the cars speeding across the causeway had disappeared. Instead I was feeling something like a pulse from the water and the breeze and the sun and the light – all interacting and creating this sense of aliveness and connection. The air was full of peace and vibrancy.

I slowly turned around 360 degrees. Sacramento was to the east, Mount Diablo out to the south, the coastal range to the west and the causeway to the north…in the distance…with cars and trucks moving across it…an Amtrak train headed toward Sacramento. This was another world: so close to my normal world, but so far away. I felt light and hopeful and so amazed. This had been in sight, but completely separate from my life, for all of those years. As I stood there that day in November, I felt my world expanding with a clear sense it was Very Good that I had followed the voice in my heart.

That is how my healing and enlivening odyssey with photography started. From there I felt compelled to capture moments of surprise and delight I experienced in the beauty of nature.