tempered art
By Michelle Knight knight@theacorn.com

IRIS SMOOT/Acorn Newspapers MOSAIC- Award-winning Camarillo artist Emily Wood shows off her melted glass art at the Old Town Studio Gallery on Saturday.

Though it happened 35 years ago, Emily Wood still remembers marveling at the hypnotic web of shattered glass glimmering in the California sun as her father drove past an intersection where a traffic accident had just occurred.

But when Wood arrived home, she learned her mother had been killed in that very collision. The news drove her to hide and sob in a closet.

"I didn't want to hear the painful words," said Wood, now 47.

Her father, a military man who thought emotions were best kept repressed, had been estranged from his wife but was in town for a visit when the accident occurred. Wood and her siblings went to live with him, first in New Jersey and later in Florida.

It was in Florida, at the age of 18, that Wood began dabbling in stained and melted glass.

After high school and over the next 25 years, her life took various paths.

She started and ended several careers- commercial fisher, hair stylist, salesperson, actress, computer programmer, and electrician at the Kennedy Space Center. In the meantime, she married, had two children and eventually moved to Camarillo.

But whether Wood was carving swordfish fillets, soldering circuit boards for NASA or acting on the set of "Roseanne," art was never far away. She always tried to incorporate beauty into her work.

When her marriage soured and Wood and her husband divorced, she decided to return to college. She'd gone to school for cosmetology and, later on, graphic design, but this time she'd follow her instincts and study art.

She graduated in 2003 with a bachelor's degree in fine arts from Cal State Channel Islands. That was when she realized she'd been an artist all along.

But another epiphany was yet to come. Last year, the award-winning glass artist put the puzzle pieces of her life together when a friend said Wood expressed her pain in her art.

It all began to make sense. Out of the horrible tragedy that claimed her mother's life came broken bits of beautiful glass, along with the urge, the drive, for expression through fractured glass.

"It was really freeing to me; it made me happy," Wood said of the realization.

Now her art had meaning, a purpose, she said.

"I take broken pieces and put them together and make them look beautiful," Wood said. "I have a need to do that."

And others have noticed. Several pieces have won top awards, including "Broken Heart."

Patti Hawkins was instantly drawn to the piece.

"When I first saw it, I just fell in love with it," said Hawkins, a recovery-room nurse at St. John's Regional Medical Center and Wood's former roommate. "To me it looks more like a healing heart."

When she moved to the area a couple of years ago, Hawkins rented a room from Wood. She knows the irony of Wood's work and the history behind "Broken Heart."

Twice, the finished piece fell over and broke apart, and twice Wood reworked and reinforced it with more glass.

"So now the broken heart is stronger than before," Hawkins said with a chuckle.

Wood said the way she saw it, "(Broken Heart) was meant to be broken, and now I'm going to make it better."

The piece won first place in the Soroptimists' Art 4 Heart juried exhibit last year.

Wood said other people may benefit from her experience: Perhaps past tragedies are the unexamined driving force in their lives, too.

"I just won't forget going through that intersection, seeing all the broken glass sitting there, shimmering in the sun," she said.

Emily Wood lives in Camarillo with her children. Her 20year-old daughter is a student at Moorpark College, and her 16year-old son attends Newbury Park High School.

Her work will be on display through April 15 at the Old Town Studio Gallery.

For more information, call (818) 749-5598.