We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Day Kennedy a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Day, appreciate you joining us today. Before we get into specifics, let’s talk about success more generally. What do you think it takes to be successful?

Success can be defined in so many different ways and it means something completely different to different people. Does success mean you make a certain amount of money? Does it mean you are getting a certain level of notoriety or attention? Does success mean having a good work/life balance? The first step is figuring out what success looks like to you. However you define success, I think setting goals is helpful. Big picture thinking can be overwhelming at times so if you break it down into steps and reaching certain milestones it can make it more manageable. Regardless of how you define success, I think dedication, hard work, and a little bit of luck are all key.

Day, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I am a stained glass artist and retail store owner in Atlanta. I started working in glass in 2017 and almost instantly fell in love with the process. I’ve worked with glass in one way or another almost every single day since that first day. One of my favorite things about what I do is changing the way people perceive stained glass. Until recently I think the medium was widely overlooked as a common home decor element. You don’t have to have an entire window replaced with traditional stained glass like in cathedrals and commercial buildings. You can get a small panel to hang in a window, or use it as wall decor. Or have a stained glass tray to catch your keys when you walk in the door. The medium is so versatile and so much more accessible than a lot of people realized. My personal style lends more towards geometric and abstract designs. I love to play with colors and different textures and use all the qualities of glass as my inspiration. The way light refracts through glass is so magical and can really transform a space in unexpected ways. I opened a retail store in Kirkwood last year to sell glass and supplies to other glass artists, and I am currently the only store in the state of Georgia to source supplies locally. I also began teaching beginner stained glass classes at the store and that has become one of the things I am most excited about and proud of. I love teaching and spreading my love of glass, and love seeing how proud my students are when they accomplish something that seemed so intimidating to them at first. I have a lot of pride in the quality of my work and the structural integrity of my pieces and I want to instill the importance of that in my students. Great designs are one thing, but being able to create a well-made panel that is able to stand the test of time is the real skill. Seeing former students of mine go on to make beautiful well-made designs of their own gives me so much joy.
Basically I’m focusing on three main goals right now. I want to make pretty things for people. I want to teach other people how to make pretty things. And I want to give other glass artists a place to source materials and pick out glass locally.

Can you talk to us about how your side-hustle turned into something more.

Daylight Glassworks did start out as a side hustle. I opened an Etsy shop to sell sun catchers and small panels. I started doing local art markets and festivals and that’s when I decided I wanted to make a real go of it. I quit my day job and focused all of my time and energy into making stuff. I started doing markets almost every weekend. I would do one or two big 2-day festivals a month, and then some smaller pop-up markets in between. I was working my ass off to make enough stuff to sell. I gained a lot of followers on Instagram from doing all these markets. When Covid hit and all the markets and festivals were cancelled, I relied on that social media following to switch gears to doing more custom work and commissions. I still do markets every now and then but I am happy putting most of my effort into making things for my own website updates and doing commissions. In August 2021 I opened ATL Glassworks to sell glass and supplies to other artists and to start teaching classes, something customers and followers have been asking of me for a long time. In the last 5 years stained glass has gone from a hobby to a side-hustle to taking over my entire life, and I am so grateful for where I am now.

Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?

Being active on Instagram is hands-down the biggest reason for my growth as a business. There has been a lot of frustration with Instagram recently and general frustration on the reliance on social media, but I owe a large part of my continued success to Instagram. I post everything I make on there and remind everyone of when I’ll be adding things for sale to my website or when I have an event coming up. I also post a lot of in-process and behind the scenes content so people can see how much work actually goes into making the stained glass, and let them get to know a little of my personality so they can see they’re supporting an actual human. I think that is important to a lot of people… knowing where their money is going and being more selective of people and brands they choose to support. They can see how hard I work and how much I care about the quality of what I’m making and they’re happy to support me. I have so many repeat customers who buy things for themselves and as gifts for other people and I am so beyond grateful for support like that.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.daylightglassworks.com, www.atlglassworks.com
• Instagram: @daylightglassworks, @atlglassworks
• Other: Stop by ATL Glassworks at 1511 Memorial Dr to chat with me, see some of my art and the raw materials that go into making it!