Traditional fine art studies at The Maryland Institute College of Art focusing on drawing, painting and printmaking are the foundation of Ilene Richardson’s creativity. While her concentrations in fine arts shifted decades ago, Ilene became a glass artist incorporating the myriad of colors and textures in handmade glass as a stained glass artist and later, as a glass beadmaker.

Every section of stained glass is chosen for its elegant quality of color, shadow and light illuminating from within. Ilene approaches stained glass and glass beadmaking through the eyes of a painter, appreciating tonal qualities in glass seeking precise combinations of hues within endless colors of glass.

As a glass beadmaker, Ilene creates glass beads in the flame, handling molten glass while teasing it into balance around a steel mandrel, and letting temperature, surface tension and gravity influence the end result. These elements known as lampworking gather in unison, fulfilling Ilene’s artistic need to create depth, movement and emotion through glass.

After earning a Bachelor’s Degree in fine arts from The Maryland Institute, College of Art in Baltimore, Maryland, Ilene easily departed big city life discovering her artist’s energy thrived living along the beach. Years later, Ilene’s art training continued at Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk, Virginia earning a Masters Degree in Art Therapy, exploring creative processes in depth, helping people understand life through their own art making.

Ilene Richardson lives on the water in Onancock, Virginia surrounded by sailboats and coastal inspirations. She draws her creative energy from beach and waterfront living and while spending decades by the water’s edge, in time came Ilene’s unconscious realization of the impossibility to live anywhere other than along the coast with ocean, bay waters and everything they encompass in nature.