Belleville News-Democrat, The (IL)
August 26, 2004
SALUTE TO THE ARTS
TEACHER MASTERS FINE ART OF GLASS BEADS
Roger Schlueter
FAIRVIEW HEIGHTS --- As Patty Kampmann placed the slender, black glass rod into the 2,400-degree flame, it was hard not to notice what had to be the scars of battle. There, across the back of her left hand were a line of small, dark circles, obviously the remnants of where tiny globs of wayward molten glass had crashed and burned.
Only in the past few months has Kampmann mustered the courage to work her blazing torch so she can produce her latest artistic love --- colorfully ornate handmade beads. The darkened patches must be the result of rookie mistakes. Well, not quite. They actually involve something far more sinister.
"I was browning a pot roast and when I went to turn it, it spattered grease all over my hand," laughed this vivacious, rural Millstadt free-spirit who admits to choosing Hooters on Mother's Day to avoid the crowds elsewhere. "I will never cook again. It's takeout from now on!"
No wonder she feels more comfortable cooking up her latest ideas in glass at her basement torch fueled by a propane tank and oxygen generator. After a serious horseriding accident helped resurrect her love of drawing, she has become a designer of bold, individualized beaded jewelry that commands attention.
And now, she says, she knows she has officially arrived. After being a patron since it started, Kampmann is one of the 100 elite artists selected for this weekend's Salute to the Arts in Fairview Heights. Formerly known as the Salute to the Masters, the 17th annual juried exposition is free and open to the public all day Saturday and Sunday in Longacre Park.
"In my mind, if you make it into the Salute, you've made it," said Kampmann, who started MyTym Beads and Fine Art out of her home in 2002. "That has been the premiere art show since I moved to Belleville years ago. I never dreamed I would be there, and so I'm thrilled."
The Salute should be equally thrilled to have this mother of two who, since moving to Belleville in 1987, has compiled a resume as colorful as her beadwork.
An art teacher in Belleville District 118 since 1991, she started the ever-growing Westhaven Art Festival and was nominated teacher of the year in 2000. She was founder of the Brad Kellerman Art Award at Southwestern Illinois College, in memory of the late Belleville News-Democrat photographer, and trains student teachers from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville and McKendree College.
Almost immediately upon joining the Gateway East Artists Guild, she became its president and, in four years, watched the group triple its membership. She has organized children's activities for Belleville's Art on the Square, and, as a result, now directs the gallery area of the Broadway Center of Arts in Belleville.
A pretty impressive list considering she thought she had put her dreams of art aside as a child. A Los Angeles native, she was born into a family of horse lovers. She remembers a great-aunt who would go on fox hunts in England. It was only natural that she would draw horses "like nobody's business all the time."
"I think I had always grown up with this pipe dream of being an artisan," Kampmann said. "But I was really discouraged by people around me to become an artist --- you know, the whole starving artist aspect. I knew I loved kids, so I went into education." Horses not only revived those dreams but brought her to Belleville. After graduating from Florida State University in 1987, she immediately faced a dilemma. Her father, then stationed at Scott Air Force Base, was being shipped to Korea, so her mother needed Kampmann to care for her thoroughbred until she returned.
The most economical solution turned out for Kampmann to move to Belleville, where she landed a job as a fifth-grade teacher at Franklin. She also landed her husband, Fred, who just happened to have a thoroughbred at the same stable. Together, they would compete in dressage, stadium and cross-country jumping and serve as trainers and judges at shows. They now own a Welsh pony and miniature for their two daughters, Abby, now 10, and Sarah, 8.
In 1991, she fell off her thoroughbred, seriously injuring her back. It was during that month of bed rest on pain medication that she rediscovered her true calling.
"Out of sheer boredom, I picked up a tablet of paper and some photographs, and I started drawing," she said of her pencilworks that she calls graphite paintings. "I found I could copy anything. Then, I started adding the values and shading, and I really scared myself. Like, whoa, where's this coming from?"
Kampmann was determined to pursue that love. When she learned that a district art teacher was retiring, she put her name in the ring and won the job. Soon, she was taking classes at Belleville Area College under the guidance of such area masters as Doug Eskra and Guy Weible.
Over the years, she has tried her hand at ceramics, watercolors, pastels --- even weaving --- under noted St. Louis artist Jerry Thomas and numerous others. But nothing seems to have captured her enthusiasm like beads did a decade ago. It started when she noticed a friend wearing a beaded watchband.
"I said, `Where'd you get that?' and she said, `Arizona,'" Kampmann said. "Obviously, not convenient for most people to go pick one up. So, I went down to the bead store and said, `Well, I'll make one.' And, as soon as I walked in, I was hooked."
Word spread and soon Kampmann was selling dozens of bands. But after 200 or so, she grew tired because fitting them was too difficult and she couldn't find a decent elastic product for the band.
"And, everybody was shopping at the same bead stores, so there was a similarity in styles," she said.
That's when she met Larry Hesterberg, owner of the Art Glass Studio of Belleville. While shopping for glass for a school project, Kampmann noticed boxes of odd-looking beads sitting around the store.
"They were somewhat crude but handmade definitely and lots of potential," Kampmann remembers. "I started getting excited. I said, `What are you doing with these beads?' and he said, `I don't know. I just keep making them.' So, within 10 minutes, we were partners. We just hit it off perfectly."
For years, Kampmann would watch Hesterberg perfect his craft as he learned to take rods of glass and fashion them into beads of every shape, style and color mixture. Soon he was even turning out flowers and tiny creatures like frogs, fish, ladybugs, owls and bumblebees. Kampmann would take the beads and fashion pendants, rings, bracelets and earrings that friends and teachers gobbled up. "I'd been very interested in making my own beads but scared to death of the flame --- and that's kind of required," she said. "So I just stood over his shoulder for five years and just really admired what he was doing and listened to every word he said. Finally, I knew that I needed to do this."
She got her torch last Christmas and set it up in a kind of small concrete bunker downstairs that she couldn't damage. But after having her husband light it the first few times ("I don't even light the barbecue grill") she no longer is afraid of that initial poof.
"Actually, my first attempts were pretty messy," admitted Kampmann. "My first attempts I was lucky if I could get it round and then I was lucky if I could add some design to it and it continued to keep its shape. Now, I've made what I have on and I'm pretty pleased with it."
Now, after a long day of teaching, she'll don her suede bib and specially tinted goggles and sit down at her small work table with its rainbow of glass rods, ready to work her magic. In her right hand, she holds the glass rod she wants to melt; in her left a steel rod with a "release powder" onto which the molten glass flows.
As she turns the steel rod, the new bead, glowing orange, takes shape. Then, she begins to add designs, allowing the bead to cool each time before adding another color.
It's an intricate process that can take nearly an hour depending on the complexity of the bead. Small flowers, for example, may take 25 separate applications of colored glass. Clear glass may be added to give the illusion of depth. She can also use tools to shape the beads or use a knife to slice cuts into them. The possibilities are endless.
"I'll sit down with one idea in mind and it will become something else," she said. "And that just starts a whole 'nother chain of events. It's just an amazing process and the creativity involved is just limitless."
Once she is satisfied with the bead, it is allowed to cool slowly in a kiln or Crock-Pot for 24 hours. Kampmann then assembles the beads into jewelry in her upstairs studio so she can be nearer her family. She even fashions her own clasps. Prices for her work, which she guarantees against breakage and defect, range from about $15-$150.
The work is getting noticed. Looking for their "breakout year," she and Hesterberg applied to 10 major art shows, hoping to make two. They wound up being accepted to nine, a major reason she is striving to make her beadwork more consistent in design.
"It's an obsession," she said. "It really is an obsession. There's a system to it where just kind of get into a groove where you just can't stop. There's so much pleasure just sitting here in my studio stringing beads and designing and coming up with new things."
Copyright (c) 2004 The Belleville News-Democrat