Meet Carrie Shusta | Stained Glass Artist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Carrie Shusta and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Carrie, how has your work-life balance changed over time?
The balance between making and selling my art and being a wife, mom, daughter, sister and friend has changed a lot through the last five years. During quarantine it seemed like everyone was buying art and since we were all sequestered it made sense to just keep making it. I felt like a machine at times but what else was I doing? A lot of nothing since none of my gigs were considered essential.

The chaos ensued when I forced myself to keep working at that capacity when things became “normal” again. I started to resent making stuff and that made me sad. However, it must be said that I have a partner who does the heavy lifting when it comes to our income so I wasn’t exactly forced to hustle as hard as I was.

I think my hustle was a combination of needing to make some money, imposture syndrome and feeling off if I wasn’t creating.

Now I clean houses on the side and I do what I want with my art. I took a break this summer from glass to tend to a garden and finish some house renovations which fueled my creative burn. It’s just what I needed. Sometimes not making glass is part of the process for me and I’m learning to lean into that without beating myself up. I will inevitably always be creating something whether it’s a flower garden or stenciling the walls in my house, etc. So now I do the most of what brings me joy and it can look different whenever I want it to!

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I am a late bloomer as far as selling anything I’ve made. I didn’t start with glass art until the age of 40 and I’m now 48 years old. I’ve always been a creative person and have tried many different creative outlets throughout my life, which I’m so grateful for, but nothing really stuck!

I think I’m like anyone else in that I had goals, I worked hard, failed a lot…but in the end accomplished the things I set out to do.

Right now my main goal is to do what makes me happy. A valuable lesson I’ve learned is that I don’t have to produce like mad to be successful. My contentment and happiness in my process is my success. My process doesn’t have to look like anyone else’s and neither does my success.

I don’t really want to feel like I want the world to know about my brand or my story. If my work brings joy to whomever receives it then that’s alright by me.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
We would hit the woods! We’d spend time on the lake and in the trees!

We would take a day trip to Philly, Baltimore or DC and hit the museums!

I’d find all the most delicious vegan restaurants plus the Indian, Thai and Mexicans ones too!

We’d also ride bikes around the neighborhood because it’s fun and free.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
My shoutout goes out to all of my artist friends I have who practice all different mediums and who have inspired me and taught me so much about literally everything!

There is nothing like living life with a community of friends who are artists! It is deeply emotional, enriching, interesting, weird and wonderful!

Instagram: @carrie_shusta_stainedglass