About the Artist

My family first came to Maui in the early 1900's, and I've always considered Maui "home," even during the 15 years I spent in Los Angeles, studying and then working in the film industry.

I began making wire-wrap jewelry for friends and family around 2001, and I've always been drawn to the unique beauty of glass, ever since I was a little girl collecting beach glass on Hawaiian beaches.

Glass is unlike any other material. It can assume almost any shape or hue; it transforms and is transformed by light, and its beauty, like the beauty of Hawaii itself, is both durable and fragile.

So when Maui's call brought me back in late 2005, I set up an art glass studio at the Kula home where my family has lived for four generations. After a year of development, Kula Creations was launched in late 2006.

Having long admired the artistry of traditional Hawaiian quilts, I wanted to bring those design principles to my glasswork. The lush plant life of upcountry Maui provided ample inspiration, and soon I had eight original designs for the Hawaiian Quilts series. In response to customer requests, I created two new designs in 2007. To complement the designs, I selected a rainbow of colored art glass that perfectly captures the radiance and brilliant colors of Hawaii.

The Ancient Expressions series was borne out of memories of long hikes onto lava fields with my parents, gently collecting rubbings of petroglyphs, taking great care not to damage them. The early Hawaiians carved these mysterious, elegant symbols into the lava in areas of great mana, or power. I have engraved some of those same images into the surface of iridescent glass to produce beautiful, wearable mementos of that ancient culture.

I personally made each piece of Kula Creations jewelry by hand, from start to finish. (Click here to learn more about how I created our handmade glass jewelry.)

I hope you enjoy browsing the website, and that perhaps you will order your own little piece of Hawaii today. Once our current inventory is gone, there will be no more.

May the beauty and spirit of the islands be with you always!

Aloha,

Stacy Soderholm
Founding Member, Maui Glass Artists Association
updated November 2008, Kula, Maui