Ed & Kay Botkin
About Ed Botkin
Ed was born and brought up in the State of Maine. He has been working in art for over forty years. His introduction to art education consisted of watching his father, an accomplished oil painter and cabinetmaker, work in his studio. Ed’s early work was in oil painted landscapes. In the late 1980’s his work shifted to abstract, multi-media, pieces that incorporated fused stained glass as a focal point and a painted canvas as the background. For the past twenty years Ed has resumed his work with realistic oil paintings. He has studied extensively under Sergio Ledron de Guevara, in internationally known artist and noted painter Roger Dale Brown, OPA.
Ed’s landscape work is done both plein air and in the studio. In the winter Ed works at his studio located in the desert foothills of Arizona. He and his wife spend their summers at their home and studio located in Tenants Harbor, Maine.
Ed has served on the board of the Sonoran Arts League in Arizona as a Juried Artist Member He is a Juried Member of the Arizona Art Alliance, a member of Plein Air Painters of Maine, and the Verde Art League.
About Kay Botkin
Kay has been working in stained glass since 1971. Her involvement with glass started at a studio in Scottsdale, Arizona where she learned all phases of stained-glass design and fabrication. In 1973 Kay opened her own stained-glass studio, The Stained Glass Shop, in Arizona. The retail studio featured original glass gift items, decorative wall reliefs, and custom stained glass. Comprehensive stained-glass classes were offered and taught by Kay.
Her original stained glass art has been exhibited throughout the United States and internationally. A stained-glass panel designed and fabricated by Kay, entitled Southwest Pottery, was one of twenty panels on exhibit at La Galerie du Vitral, Chartres, France. This exhibit, sponsored by The Stained Glass Association of America, was the first presentation of non-architectural American stained glass in Europe.
Recently Kay has been working on a series of granite garden sculptures. Some incorporating a wide verity of glass types, including pieces she has fired in her kiln and inch thick “dalle de virre” glass. Other designs incorporate bronze wind bells or copper weathervanes. These sculptures have been used as lawn and garden sculptures as well as deck and inside home accent pieces.