Artists
Christine Windolf
From a very young age Christine showed talent over a wide scope of mediums. She was influenced, from an early age, by the talents of the females in her family. Christine's grandmother was a dressmaker and her mother a skilled embroiderer, seamstress and patchworker - all her aunts on her mother's side also are great artisans in their own fields of pottery, patchworking, sewing and embroidery.
Christine left school and worked in the Public Service for many years [as girls did in those days - "...you can't make money from art, you should be a secretary" (aren't we lucky now that these perceptions have changed and young artists have the freedom to be just that)]. As time passed Christine found herself a single mother with two rowdy sons, her arts and crafts kept her sane during this time and also became a source of extra income when money was tight.
In 2000 Christine took a voluntary redundancy and used the funds she received to build a classroom/studio onto the back of her home where she taught decorative painting. At this time she also became contracted to an American Paint Company, DecoArt, as a Helping Artist, designing and promoting their products. During the same period, Christine also learned stained glass and copper foiling and supplied a party plan with glass objects for a number of years.
Christine enjoys attending several workshops and classes each year, enabling her to learn new skills and 'buff up' on previously learned ones.
After a visit to the Brisbane Bead and Gem Show in 2005 Christine attended a 1-day lampworking course in the following September. This day was to change her life forever. She was instantly addicted to melting and forming glass into small, integral, works of art. When she attended the class she didn't really know much about lampworking but became a 'sponge' and found she could not get enough information, either from books or the internet, to satisfy her curiosity! It was also the time that she was introduced to Internet Forums. Christine very quickly discovered the wonderful camaraderie that exists between members and the generosity in sharing techniques freely with others, frequently and primarily, complete strangers. She spent every spare hour melting glass (and many hours that should have been spent sleeping). She became totally obsessed and spent every available minute practicing the same skills over and over again until she was happy with the results.
Christine feels that her highest achievements in terms of skill are her multi-leveled encased florals, which remain her favorites to this day. She loves nature and her beads reflect this with detailed gardens and aquarium beads as well as more structured beads with crisp detail. Christine also enjoys making sculptured beads and has a range of farm animals and goddesses as well as currently working on a tea party series.
Christine has not anticipated, when she attended that lampworking class, that she would also need to learn how to take photographs of beads to display on the internet - then, in addition, came the need to learn html, a skill Christine finds significantly more difficult than making beads as she "doesn't do modern technology").
Christine has sold her beads actively on Ebay since July 2006 and has many happy customers from around the world. Christine is very proudly a member of Australia and New Zealand Self Representing Glass Beadmakers.
Christine saw her invitation to join the Northcoast Beadmakers team as a way to continue to create her works of art while "someone else looked after the internet side of things!".