Hello friends! I'm Melinda and I am the creator behind Dead End Glass. I was born and raised in the East Bay (Oakland), California, attended college in Tampa, Florida and decided to plant my roots in New York City after graduation.
I hold a Bachelors in Education from USF and additional professional certifications in Public Accountancy from NYU. During my college days, I used most of my free coursework to study ceramics, drawing and painting. After relocating to New York in 2008, I spent my professional years working in accounting while also participating in local art shows and creating digital marketing, flyers, as well as painting a few interior mural signage for various small businesses in the Brooklyn motorcycle community.
Stained glass creation had always been on my mind since my college days but with limited space and capacity while living in the city, I wasn't able to make this dream a reality. In 2014, I began creating a stained glass materials list and did a deep dive into the medium to research how to create in this art form. It wasn't until purchasing a home in Long Island, New York in 2018 that I became serious about my want to express myself creatively in stained glass and started discussing what I needed to get done to set up a home studio with my husband who is an architectural welder and glazier.
My plans for starting a home studio came to a hault at the beginning of 2019 when I was diagnosed with stage 2 ovarian cancer for a very aggressive grade 3 tumor. I underwent multiple surgeries, IVF treatment, and chemotherapy until I was officially declared cancer free in spring of 2020. It was in December of 2019 that I received my first stained glass tools and finished setting up my studio in January of 2020. After being cleared by my team of oncologists, I created my first stained glass piece after several glass cutting lessons from my husband.
It was this experience that lead me to dive head first into creating stained glass art while my body healed from all the trauma it experienced. It was a creative outlet for my mental health as I moved from cancer into a worldwide pandemic. It was my way of putting something beautiful back into the world after the ugliness of cancer.
As of April 2022, I began my journey as a full-time stained glass artist. In addition to stained glass, I began my glass fusing journey in 2021. It is my hopes to bring modern decorative artwork, as well as functional glass dishware and other decorative glass creations to your homes as cherished heirlooms.
Please feel free to reach out by visiting the contact page or emailing [email protected] for all inquiries.