We were lucky to catch up with Steven Lenchner recently and have shared our conversation below.

Steven, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

I began working with color and light at the age of 13 when I started lighting plays and musicals.

Being captivated by light and color, I went to earn a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Ohio University in Theatrical Lighting and Scene Design.

I began working with fused glass in the late 2002; seeing the potential of light in fusing glass. I studied fused glass with many prominent glass artists and created 30 fused glass works of art for his first solo show at Los Angeles Brewery Art Walk in April 2003.

And thus my passion for art and architectural glass was ignited!

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I started to design lighting for plays and musicals when I was 13 years only. Ever since then, I have been fascinated and passionate about color and light. I didn’t realize it at the times, but I was blessed to find a passion at such an early age.

After I earned a Bachelor’s of Fine Arts degree in Theatrical Lighting and Scene Design and I move to Los Angeles in 1982 to pursue a career in Theatrical and Television lighting design. The first few years that I lived in Los Angeles, I worked at UCLA’s Royce Hall, and was bless to work with many of the major performing artists of the day, including Martha Graham, Murray Lewis, Ballet Trockadero, and Alvin Aailey dance companies.

I went on to design lighting for many dance companies, including Lula Washington, who I went to The Jacobs Pillow Dance Festival (https://www.jacobspillow.org/) with as lighting designer and stage manager.

In addition to developing my “chops” in lighting design, I also developed a way to evoke responses from my clients as to what the feeling was behind each piece. The emotion they described gave me direction as to how to elicit a response form the audience through lighting, color, and textures. Us humans are wired to respond to color and light in both conscious and unconscious ways.

I went on to include this style of conversation as a way to engage with my clients in a manner that engaged them and made them feel attached to what was being created for them; they felt a sense of ownership of the end results, that they were heard, and that they did in fact, have a creative vocabulary. I love working in this inclusive manner and by doing so, my clients feel an attachment to the end result that they may not have otherwise felt. Personally, I can’t stand a “one size fits all” approach to creating art for my clients,

As my career developed, it took me away from design and led me to producing television shows. The work was all about money and logistics. As a creative, I was stifled. Fortunately, a very empathetic friend of mine noticed the color fading from my life, and took it upon herself to find a creative outlet that we could share. She taped segments about glass artists and shared them with me.

Right away, I could see how glass art could incorporate my love of light and color. in 2002 we went to Santa Cruz and took an introduction to Kiln Formed Art Glass class. We were both completely smitten with the art glass ever since!

I can’t imagine my life without art and beauty!

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

I am so blessed to have found my passion for color and light at such an early age. It gave me a focus and helped me to learn skills that I still utilize to this day. As theater is a technical medium, and requires the ability to do critical thinking, I was able to learn how things work and how to incorporate their use. Glass is a highly technical medium; it, like theater involves reverse engineering, from the idea I see in my minds eye, to the actual fruition of an idea.

My resilience flows from having creative outlets all of my life and from the ability of being a lifelong-learner (lifelong learning IS the Fountain of Youth!)

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

The first thing I had to unlearn, is that when it comes to ideas, that there is a right and a wrong. This notion absolutely inhibits the free flow of ideas and limits possibilities!

My backstory on this is that my friend, who I started doing glass art with was a graphics designer. She would show me the elements of her work and ask if I had any ideas. I would give her a dozen ideas off the top of my head without a pause or a breath. She would look at me slack jawed and ask how I could do that. It was then I consciously realized that right and wrong totally inhibited the creative process. Besides, how many times have you heard that some of the best work comes from “mistakes?”

Contact Info:

• Website: LenchnerGlass.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ImagineGlassDesigns
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@LenchnerGlass
• Other: ImagineGlassDesigns.com

Image Credits
All Photos by Steven Lenchner