All About Katie
Katie was bought up among the fields and flowers of the Essex countryside. At 16 she went to study Art and Design at Braintree College where she loved photography, printing textiles and painting on glass. This led her to get a place at Chelsea School of Art where she studied Mural Design. Katie learnt how to create art work on a large scale and her favorite medium to work with was Stained Glass. Her final major project was for a freeze of stained glass windows depicting the London skyline.
During her twenties Katie made a few stained glass windows including one for a school reception, a set of conservertory doors and a large interior panel to name a few and she enjoyed working on a large scale. She made these along with saving money she earned as a waitress so she could go travelling! At 21 Katie went off to the Southern hemisphere with her best friend and they spent a year and a half wandering around South East Asia, Australia, New Zealand and India.
Katie had got the travel bug and wanted to go away again and this time, age 24, she flew solo to South America. Six months spent rambling around the mountains and coastline of that epic continent gave Katie time to think about what she wanted to do with her life so, on returning she went back to college to study Visual Merchandising. Among other places she worked at Habitat, Harvey Nichols and Selfridges.
Forward another few years and Katie then got a irresistible offer from her good friend Scott to stay in Bali. This beautiful island was enough to make her feel rather differently towards her lovely friend and twenty two years on they are still together, having had four children, umpteen chickens, lots of cats and Flo the three-legged dog.
Forward another load of years and once Katie's youngest fledgling had started school she wanted to get making and creating again. She knew she wanted to work with glass again and after visiting a show in London and seeing loads of fused glass wonders she was in love and intrigued by the medium. Katie obviously had experienced working with the wonderful colours that are available in stained glass, but had wanted to find a way that wasn't so restrictive to form - fusing was the way to go, much freer, more fluid and it felt like a natural way for her to work.
Katie invested in a kiln and got to work. The Small Star was one of the first items that she started making and it's still a firm wonky lovers favourite today.
Fusing suited Katie and in October 2009 her glass fusing business was born and named molten wonky: molten by technique and wonky by nature!
molten wonky prodcuts are made with a certain production ethos, each "wonky" item will retain its own quirky uniqueness. Katie likes to work in a random and haphazard way, and that helps to create each uniquely "wonky" product.
The products made for molten wonky are all created as unique individuals but each is part of one of our ranges. The first range was a Christmas collection in 2010. Nugget jewels and the first Wonkyland flowers were grown in 2011. Wonky Love was introduced in 2012 for Valentine's Day and 2013 brought Quirky Birds to the range. Since then the ranges have expanded, although many of the original products remain the best sellers :-)
molten wonky prodcuts are all hand cut from sheet of specialist glass fusing glass by Bullseye. Dichroic pieces, wire, paint and millefiore are added to create interest and to make each piece individual.
The molten wonky studio is having a massive update this year and is moving to the old tractor shed, just up the driveway from the old studio. Katie will be frequently holding workshops and open studio events here later in the year, please see our events page for more details.
molten wonky products are available for wholesale purchasing. If you are a shop or a gallery and would like a trade brochure please email katie.lynn@moltenwonky.co.uk with details of your shop name, address and what you're interested in stocking.