Independent Arts News Reporting 
Pictured Above: Botanical fused glass artwork by Karen Caldwell at Sunflower Glass Studio. Photo Credit: Contributed.
Nature Meets Glass: Karen Caldwell’s Botanical Art at Sunflower Glass Studio
By: Chrysa Smith
At Sunflower Glass Studio in Stockton, New Jersey, artist Karen Caldwell transforms nature into intricate works of fused and stained glass. From delicate botanical designs to custom commissions, Caldwell and her husband, Geoff, have spent decades creating distinctive glass art inspired by the natural world. Arts News Now contributor Chrysa Smith explores their creative process, artistic journey, and participation in the upcoming Covered Bridge Artisans Tour across Hunterdon and Bucks counties.
Karen Caldwell has an eye for the beautiful, the botanical and the beveled. At her Sunflower Glass Studio in Stockton, New Jersey, it’s all on display. The glass artisan stumbled upon her unique talent for stained glass making quite by accident, and now, she’s been at it for 48 years.
Walk into her studio and feel like you’re in a garden. Hanging glass panels, candle holders, boxes and other objects are adorned with the most intricate floral designs. With an education in horticulture, it’s obvious where her subjects come from. But not her glass-making skills. She wasn’t traditionally trained, but in the 70’s, Karen had worked for a Tiffany-style lamp shop in Flemington. It was there she learned the art of working with glass and decided, “I can do that,” she said. So, she experimented, and now, decades later, she can say she’s had quite a successful wholesale business, and now, has a very good commission and retail business.
Karen and her husband Geoff work together. Karen creates all the fused glass pieces; Geoff the stained and beveled glass commissions. And it all came together after the two met at a leather shop in Flemington. The couple, who call themselves prism and rainbow lovers, decided to form a team, in both the work and personal lives, and in 1980 purchased a beveling machine. “Beveling was very popular back then,” Karen says. It could be seen in windows, trinket boxes, candle holders. But, as with many products, handmade, beveled windows went the way of China where mass-produced objects could be produced for less money, if not of the same quality. So, they had to reimagine themselves. And changing times have a way of paving a path.
Pictured Above: Glass artist Karen Caldwell of Sunflower Glass Studio in Stockton, NJ. Photo Credit: Contributed.
The Art of Botanical Fused Glass at Sunflower Glass Studio
Stained and fused glass have taken the wheel. For her studio pieces, imagination takes the wheel as her to fields of flowers, animals come alive— the colors, textures, delicate details. With stained-glass, she hand cuts and grinds the bevels, using colored sheet glass from the hand-drawn designs and wraps them with a copper foil tape and solders them to hold in place. But what she can’t do, is get the intricacies she does with fused glass, which is one of the reasons her work is so unique. Humbly she says, “I’m pretty much the only one doing this type of work that I know of in the country.” She showed me the difference between a tree in stained-glass, and one in fused glass. The fused-glass piece had so much more dimension, cuts and delicacies about it. And here’s the difference in the process. “My botanical fused glass is a combination of thin pieces of glass that I create using glass powders and crushed glass called frit,” Karen says. “I shape each botanical petal and leaf on the kiln shelf, then kiln firing to solidify the powders into thin pieces of glass. The botanical parts are then arranged onto a base glass and kiln-fired several more times to create the desired effect.”
Pictured Above: Glass Panel by Artist Karen Caldwell. Photo Credit: Contributed.
For fused botanical glass objects, a piece gets put into a computerized kiln, where Karen says, it will reach a tack-firing temperature of 1350 degrees. While in there, it goes through a variety of heating and cooling stages, until it is finished. The kilns fire and cool, with some pieces taking 7-15 hours to complete. The hanging panels can take three to four days to complete. “Larger commissions can take three to four months to complete,” the artist says.
“You must use the same glass manufacturers for glass and frit, so they’re heated at the correct temperatures. The coefficient of expansion, which is how the glass expands when heated and shrinks when it cools down is important,” she says. “Otherwise, you could risk an explosion, and we don’t want that,” Karen adds. Much like the colored glass panels housed between wooden racks, so jars of colored frit line the shelves of her design space.
Custom Glass Commissions, Creative Challenges, and Art Classes
But it all begins in her head, interpreting designs from nature; sometimes from what is shown or told to her by a client. One had a circular, interconnected heart drawing her daughter had made on paper. Karen reimagined it in glass and completed a window with that design, that now hangs in that family’s home. Likewise, she did a triptych window, with designs at the bottom. She was asked to include the client’s dogs in the design. From mind to paper, she traces the outlines for the piece, numbering each one to stay organized and know where each piece fits in what she calls a glass puzzle. Then Geoff enters. He takes the design, the glass pieces, the frit, and makes it all come to life.
Pictured Above: Glass Garden House by Artist Karen Caldwell. Photo Credit: Contributed.
Besides being on display at her studio, Karen says, “I participate in high quality National Juried Art Shows each year—the largest ones.” Naturally, some people find her at these. Some find her through art classes she offers in her studio. And some, well, she’s not sure. Presently, she spends most of her time doing commissions and stained-glass classes. Her classes consist of about four people, working in unison in the studio. For some, it’s their first time trying their hand at making stained-glass. For others, it’s a return gig, as they either get hooked on glass making or don’t have their own kiln. Either way, Karen calls their works baby masterpieces. I saw a few, and I’d say she’s right. She’s also working on honing her fused glass designs. “I’m trying to perfect my feathers of birds like owls and other birds of prey in fused glass” she says. An owl lover, the bird has made it into some of her designs. “I love to challenge myself. I keep trying to do better,” she adds. The artist is part of a group exhibiting ‘miniatures’ in Brattleboro, Vermont. “Much like all of Lambertville comes together for Halloween, Brattleboro comes together with miniatures everywhere,” she adds. Karen’s contributions consist of small glass greenhouses and conservatories—even creating custom greenhouse and atriums for their main display. And coming up now, she’s an integral part of the Covered Bridge Artisans Tour in Hunterdon and Bucks Counties.
Explore the Covered Bridge Artisans Tour in Bucks and Hunterdon Counties
With a smattering of fine artists in the region, Karen is one of the two dozen showing at the Covered Bridge Artisans Tour Thanksgiving Weekend. It takes place from November 27-29, from 10am-5pm, and consists of about 10 different studios showing everything from ceramics to jewelry to metal to fabric and glass. “Back in ’94, a group of five women came together and said, we’re in the country doing fine art. Why not invite people from the surrounding areas, the cities to come see what we’re doing?” Katherine Hackl from Swan Street Studio and Karen were there from the beginning, and now, while only two of the original founders remain, the tour lives on. Two of the artists stopped by while I was there. Constance Bassett, a ceramic sculptor working in ceramics and bronze casting, who has done work on the Statue of Liberty and with David Cann on William Penn’s figure atop City Hall in Philadelphia. David works in metal, and Constance says, “Together, we inspire each other.” An art student, Constance found herself finishing incomplete sculptures created by her uncle. David, a photography student, later found himself glassblowing. They wound up at the Johnson Atelier Technical Institute of Structure, which was part of the Grounds for Sculpture in Lawrenceville, NJ.
Where Can You Discover Botanical Glass Art in Stockton, NJ?
Sunflower Glass Studio, located at 877 Sergeantsville Road in Stockton, New Jersey, is home to the work of glass artists Karen and Geoff Caldwell. The studio specializes in botanical fused glass, stained glass, and custom commissions, with stained-glass classes also offered.
877 Sergeantsville Road in Stockton
Interested visitors can learn more about the studio at
Karen Caldwell also participates in the Covered Bridge Artisans Tour, an annual event featuring artists and working studios throughout Hunterdon and Bucks counties. The 2026 tour is scheduled for November 27–29, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Learn more at www.coveredbridgeartisans.com
Pictured Above: Glass panel by Artist Karen Caldwell. Photo Credit: Contributed.
