Realistic and abstract glass artwork reflects nature 

Wanda Tyner is a glass artist who enjoys bringing creativity, color, and beauty into our everyday lives by making wall hangings, sculptures, vases, bowls, tableware, garden art, clocks, and jewelry. She also has a special passion for music-related art. 

Photo courtesy of Wanda Tyner

She draws inspiration from hiking, biking, kayaking, and traveling, or from nature in her own backyard. She kayaks on Raintree Lake in Lee’s Summit, where she lives.

Wanda began her journey when she and her husband were collecting glass artwork and sculptures for their walls and home. In her career as a technology executive in IT, she also attended an annual management meeting and would attend a local art fair, and visited a glass gallery nearby. When she decided to leave the corporate world of high tech, she gave herself a year off to decide what she wanted to do next. During that time, she began trying to understand how the glass art in her home collection was made. She took a class in glass art, and then another, and one thing led to another until she found she, too, was a glass artist.

She has trained with many glass artists from around the world, and she still studies and experiments while creating. A career in technology might seem far away from her current creativity as an artist, but she says she applies the same creativity and innovative solutions to her glass creations as she did to challenges during her career. In fact, she also says she’s been surprised at how many of her former teammates and colleagues also had creative outlets such as painting, musing, or such.

She says, “Maybe it’s something to do with how the brain works with math, too.” 

Wanda’s fascination with the scientific properties of glass and the technical programming requires her to get the various results she achieves in kiln-forming and casting. 

Her kiln-cast artwork seems to flow from realistic to abstract interpretations, and she includes 3D elements that add depth. She has won several first-place awards at several art shows for her work in 3D and Sculpture categories.

See Wanda’s artwork at several galleries and stores, including Inspo by KHL Design Studio in Lee’s Summit, Columbia Art League in Columbia, and Art Gallery in Overland Park, Kansas. 

See more of Wanda’s work here.