Jen Brodal/MDN LEFT: Margie Bolton enjoys her new window remodel and seating area at Margie’s Art Glass Studio and Black Iguana Coffee at 109 Main St. S.

If you know Margie Bolton of Margie’s Art Glass Studio and Black Iguana Coffee, you know she has a lot of irons in the fire, or rather glass in the kiln. Recently, and as part of the downtown facade improvement program through the Renaissance Committee, Bolton has gained a considerable area and presence to her already lofty and inspiring space.

Offering coffee, gifts, ceramic arts, glass crafting projects, cabinetry glass, classes on blown, stained and fused glass, as well as repairs, Margie’s Art Glass Studio is the only stained-glass store front in North Dakota.

Into the new year, Bolton said, “We’re doing coffee. We’re doing glass. We’re doing ceramics, and the last thing I want to be doing is cooking, but we do plan on adding some grab-and-go items. A lot of times people want to have a snack with the coffee, so we will just be enhancing our food offerings.”

After the remodel, Bolton said, she took everything out of the store and is slowly bringing items back, with a different and new look to the store. Bolton is marinating in her creativity on what to do for some finishings with the walls and floor but has exciting plans and much more to re-home and re-shelve into the store.

Fusing glass classes are offered this spring, making six-inch bowls called slurry bowls and fused glass flower plant stakes. Bolton said her love of glass makes her job less of a job when she can do more of what she enjoys, like fusing glass.

“There’s a sulfur-based glass and a copper-based glass and if you melt them next to each other you get a third color,” Bolton said.

The Renaissance Committee and Margie’s Art Glass worked together like fusing glass to create this new space, Bolton said.

“It was one of those things where the incentive was strong enough. We needed it. For me it was good to get it done,” she said. “I had known it from the day I bought the place, even though the building was in good shape. The windows were plate glass. It was really cold and really hot, and I had a couple of places wind was coming in too. We are trying to maintain the coziness and seating in the window areas like before the remodel.”