Workhouse Artist of the Week: Kim S. Joy

When Kim S. Joy learned she’d be the Workhouse Building 9 featured artist in February, she decided her show’s theme would be flowers.  “I’m not a real fan of flowers,” she said.  “But I thought I’d push myself to overcome that resistance, and bring something bright and cheery into the cold winter.”

Joy’s stained glass exhibition Flowers in February includes free-standing, three dimensional objects; plant pokies, a flower on a long rod to us in a garden or a planter; and single flower sun catchers that hang in a window.  “I’m going to start the show with about two dozen pieces and continue to add more during the month.” said Joy.

Joy works from photographs, drawings, architectural elements, tiles, and even coloring books. She projects a pattern onto a wall where she’s hung paper, then traces it. “I use pencil first, then trace over it with a Sharpie,” she said.  She then lays the pattern on the glass.

“I love making larger pieces because they take more time,” said Joy. She said that her process of creating depends on how she feels that day.  “If I feel adventurous, I will try new colors,” she said. “Colors dictate what I make.”

Her favorite piece in Flowers in February is a pink flower influenced by Charles Rennie Mackintosh, the Glasgow born architect, designer and artist. “It’s a very pale pink and very pale green contemporary piece with clean lines” she said. 

As a child, Joy loved creating art, but says she can’t draw to save her life.  “I always worked with found objects like little sticks and pine cones, which I strung together into necklaces,” she said. She also enjoyed working with wood, creating three dimensional objects.

In 1982, Joy took a stained glass class and loved it. She was married to a man in the air force, and their travels forced her to try other art, too.  “When we lived in Hawaii it was too expensive to have glass shipped to the Islands, so I took classes in jewelry and weaving,” she said. Joy continues to work in these mediums today, but they aren’t her preferred medium.  “My first love is stained glass,” she said.

In addition to crafting stained glass, Joy also repairs it. “I’ve repaired some very interesting pieces that people bought in Europe and shipped back to the States,” she said.  One was a church window she believes came from Belgium. “It was three feet wide and six feet long, packed for shipping with a painting behind it,” she said. The screw eyes from the frame broke pieces of the glass. “As I worked, it was interesting to consider who may have made it and how it came to be in my hands,” she said. 

When making repairs, Joy looks for old glass to use in order to preserve the integrity of the window.  “I keep old glass I’ve collected separated in a case,” she said. Often she obtains old glass from stained glass artists who are retiring and want to sell their supply. “A man in his 80s who had worked in stained glass for 40 years sold me his glass,” she said.

Joy says that she’s carrying on the artistic tradition of her family. “When I was younger I had a cousin who drove around in a van with a generator and repaired church windows,” she said.  Also, her dad was a woodworker, and her great-great-grandfather was a painter in Scotland. 

In addition to creating, Joy teaches jewelry making and stained glass with Arlington and Fairfax County adult education, at Fort Belvoir, and at the Workhouse Arts Center.  

All of which might imply that Joy is a 9 to 5 person. She isn’t. “I believe you’re most alive when you want to learn and experience everything,” she said. “Even if you fail at something new, it builds who you are.”