THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, March 19, 1995 TAG: 9503160184
SECTION: CAROLINA COAST PAGE: 14 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: Mary Ellen Riddle
LENGTH: Medium: 76 lines
Jae Everett has been on the Outer Banks only four months, and she's already won two awards for her stained glass.
It was a nice boost, said Everett, but awards are not what inspire the Rocky Mountain transplant. Her passion is the environment.
Put that together with her love of glass, and you have an artistic explosion of light, color and deep feeling.
The 44-year-old artist will be the first to tell you that her soapbox, radical days are a thing of the past. She was at Kent State during the infamous riot days. She survived the boundaryless '60s.
It is only after talking for some time and closely examining her stained glass that one discovers the subtle environmental statements in her work.
Barely discernible fish hover around coral as if suspended in time. Tropical creatures that crawl up from the steamy rain forest floor weave themselves into dense foliage.
Eagles and an elder Native American become one as feathers emanate from his being. A ghost horse appears in a drift of sea oats blowing in front of the Corolla lighthouse.
``I don't like to make causes,'' Everett said. ``That's not where I'm coming from. How I feel in my heart about a subject . . . I don't feel angry, I feel sad. I guess my radical days are over.''
Light plays a special role in Everett's work. Every kind of light gives it a different look, she said. Glass made into lamps casts a subtle, mysterious light. Everett said it's soothing, romantic.
She likes to think of her glass as multipurpose. It can be displayed with light in a traditional manner or used in interiors, on walls or as dividers.
Everett works with glass as a painter does with paint. Departing from a traditional outlined, mosaic look, she chooses opalescent glass to impart a more painterly feel. It is more opaque than clear glass.
``I like it because it lets in less light, so rather than catching the sun, it creates a picture that I want,'' she said. ``I can pull more shadows and depth out of each piece.''
Swirls of color give the glass motion, a brush-stroke look. This allows the eye to drift from piece to piece in a flowing fashion. Some pieces have raised glass sections, actual forms projecting from the flat surface. Eagle claws, spiders or generous clumps of wisteria move toward the viewer. Beveled jewels are embedded in borders.
Everett travels to Pennsylvania to hand-pick her glass. At $5 to $7 a square foot for glass, and with the time it takes to create a piece, it's an expensive art form.
``Bad things are happening with imports,'' Everett said. Assembly lines are quickly producing attractive stained glass pieces. ``They are beautiful,'' said Everett, ``but not collectibles. Just not one of a kind.''
All Everett's pieces are her original designs except for most of her lamps, which are traditional Tiffany patterns. There can be more than 2,000 pieces of glass in one lamp alone. If she works steadily, she can finish a lamp in two to three weeks.
Everett's stained glass shop on the Beach Road in Kitty Hawk is called Shattered Dreams. In the front-room studio of mostly windows hang her finished pieces.
It's the perfect setting for her work. She can watch each piece take on new character as the sun moves from the sea to the sound. Her home is gradually turning into one big studio.
``I have this little living space that I kind of creep into,'' she said.
``I'm obsessed by glass. It's my passion, you know, and it's a good passion.'' MEMO: Shattered Dreams, Milepost 4 in Kitty Hawk, is open to the public on
Saturday and Sunday and by appointment Monday through Friday. 255-0364.
ILLUSTRATION: Photo by MARY ELLEN RIDDLE
Jae Everett's stained glass works give them an artistic explosion of
light, color and deep feeling.
by CNB