 BIO:
Janette Kennedy was born in Rochester, New York, grew up in Sarasota, Florida,
went to college in Oberlin, Ohio, lived in New York City for 15 years, and,
finally moved home to the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee.
Until three weeks before Janette graduated from college she was sure that she
was going to work in theater as a set designer, when she suddenly realized that
nobody in theater makes enough money to live on. So instead, Janette got a job
with the Children's Television Workshop as a video technician (i.e. lackey) and
worked there for eight years. During this time I also worked in off-Broadway
theater, designing, directing or producing a number of shows that you have never
heard of.
In 1989 Janette started taking glassblowing classes at the New York Experimental
Glass Workshop (now UrbanGlass in Brooklyn, NY). One day she had suddenly
realized that she needed to know how to blow glass. Fortunately, Janette was in
Greenwich Village at the time, so she went into the next store that sold
handblown glass and asked if they knew how she could learn. They sent her to NY
Experimental, where Janette took classes and later got a job as a technician.
In 1991 Janette left CTW to become a substitute teacher in the South Bronx; a
job that lasted for almost six months. Suddenly finding myself needing an
income, Janette started showing her work to craft shops in New York, carrying
pieces from door to door trying to persuade people to sell them. During this
time she also worked at many other jobs to make enough money to keep from being
evicted.
 Gradually as Janette had more and more stores and galleries carrying my work she
was able to devote more of her time to glassblowing. Janette's work is now
carried in over 150 fine craft stores and galleries throughout the country and
she concentrates (almost) entirely about glassblowing alone. In 1998 Janette
moved to East Tennessee because it’s the best place in the world. Janette built
a studio in the foothills of the Smokies in which she now does all her work, and
which she shares with a good many (uninvited) cats.
"Glass
is marvelous stuff to work with: liquid, it's brilliant and dripping, like
glowing honey; solid, it's wonderfully hard and clear, like permanent ice. I can
start with a pool of liquid, and, like magic, form solid crystalline objects out
of it."
Each piece starts as a blob of molten glass--an opaque, orange-white 2000°
gather at the end of a 5-foot metal pipe. The glass starts out at soft as
caramel sauce, but as it cools, it grows firmer. When it becomes the consistency
of putty I can shape it with metal tools. When the piece is finished, I put it
into an annealer, a large oven which gradually cools it down to room temperature
over a period of 36 hours.
My studio is in East Tennessee, at the foot of the Smoky Mountains. I don’t work
alone, as there is always a crowd of neighborhood cats and dogs who hang out
there.
Janette
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These Glass Cats are hand formed and then etched -
Each is Unique & varies in shape and size
Small Cats - These are solid, fat,
round, little cats, with swirls of color inside and an etched tail
on the back |
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A frosted, flat paperweight shaped sort of
like a river rock, with a smiling, sleeping cat face on it |
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Frosted Smiling Cat
Paperweight - Cobalt
3.5" to 4" Wide
$ 76.50
Have Only
One Left
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To Order
Merchandise on Our Website Please Phone Us Toll Free 866-884-3299 or 610-695-8151
Real People will answer 10 to 5 Eastern Time Tue to Sat or
order by fax
or
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