Andrea Johnson/MDN Margie Bolton is the owner of Margie’s Art Glass Studio in downtown Minot.

Margie Bolton, the owner of Margie’s Art Glass Studio in downtown Minot, creates works of beauty using glass. However, she doesn’t really like to call herself an artist.

“It’s just what I do,” said Bolton. “I do glass. I’m a glass lady.”

Bolton, who is originally from Long Island, New York, said she originally came to North Dakota with her husband, who was in the Air Force. They stayed and worked in North Dakota. At one time, Bolton worked in sales for the Farm and Ranch Guide in Washburn. She began working with glass about 20 years ago, around the time that her children were growing older and she was interested in getting back into the business world. One of her teachers suggested that she consider opening her own business.

She purchased a building downtown, which had at one time housed a maternity and children’s clothing store, remodeled it and opened her studio, where creativity abounds.

The business, which employs five people, also offers glass, glass supplies, studio space and art classes at different times. A schedule of upcoming classes can be found on the business’s web site at www.margiesartglass.com

The business also includes a ceramic art studio where people can drop in to work on a project with no experience or appointments needed. Bolton enjoyed watching a large family group work on a project for hours last week. They were laughing and having a good time and no one seemed to notice that the cell phone reception in the basement is not the best.

“To me, that’s what it’s all about,” said Bolton.

The business also includes the coffee shop, the Black Iguana, which Bolton said also brings people into the store.

She also worked on a number of custom projects in the area that enable her to exercise her creativity.

Right now she is starting work on a project that will incorporate 12 windows from St. Henry’s Catholic Church, a long ago torn down church that used to be located near Lansford. A man who is building a home acquired the windows and wants to use them in the new structure. Bolton said she is cataloguing the windows, which are in poor shape, taking pictures of them and will draw up a pattern for the best way to make use of them.

She will work on the project when she has the time, but her work will be interrupted by other projects that come along and the day to day demands of running a business, so she isn’t sure how long until completion.

She also has restored windows from old farm homes. Sometimes an old house would have had just the one decorative glass window.

“I picture it as Dad wanted to give Mom one thing that’s really pretty in the house,” said Bolton.

By the time Margie’s Art Glass has finished a restoration project, the decorative windows look like they’re new again. She enjoys learning the history of some of the pieces she has worked on and some of them have a lot of personality as well, she said.

In addition to her own art, she also sells work of her friends and featured artists. Susan Davy’s pottery, Bev Lozensky’s raku pottery, and Paula Leeson’s jewelry are all available for sale.

Bolton has worked on projects across the countryside, many of them church windows or restoration of windows from old homes.

One of her favorite recent projects was a memorial window she worked on at a church in the Tioga area. A woman commissioned the project in memory of her husband and Bolton used a painting of the man that his nephew had created as inspiration for the window pattern.

“I was very happy with how it came out and I think she liked it too,” said Bolton.

(Prairie Profile is a weekly feature profiling interesting people in our region. We welcome suggestions from our readers. Call Regional Editor Eloise Ogden at 857-1944 or call 1-800-735-3229. You also can send email suggestions to eogden@minotdailynews.com.)