About the Artist
I am Glenda Knoll and I am proud to be the artist at the heart of WhimsicalWindowsandWords. It’s been a long journey to become who I am now, but my love of everything whimsical is something I’ve carried with me from the start.
When I was a child I loved to sit by the window, whether its was in the classroom, car, or in the kitchen. I needed the transparency, light and warmth to allow for me to dream. I think I spent too much time dreaming,
On my first day of first grade I remember asking the teacher if I could sit by the window, her name was Mrs. Nurse and her hair was in a beehive and she forgot to smile a lot of the time. She agreed to let me sit by the window, but only if I behaved. My mother had used that same word when sending me to school that same morning, so I had a very good idea what it meant.
I looked out the window feeling the warm sun and smelling the smells of fall and I started to dream. It began with the spider that was building a web on the window screen and as the web was built I noticed the beauty in the design and the intricate asymmetrical flow of the silk, and I wanted to be a spider. I heard the call for “recess” and my dream came to an abrupt end.
My seat beside the window was soon given to another classmate and I was declared a child with “difficulties paying attention”. At an early age I learned to hate school.
In the 3rd grade, I had a teacher whose name was Mrs. Dobbs. Her hair was swept up into a beehive as well and she was kind and she believed in me. When my parents would meet with her for parent teacher times, she would reassure them that I was “fine” and that my gifts were creative. She saw something in me that no one else did. Mrs. Dobbs let me sit by the window.
I loved to play. I would find treasures to find in the back lane and I could dream about the butterflies that would lead me to the fairies, or sculpt an elaborate home for a lost caterpillar. The possibilities were endless.
Even though I hated school I went on to study in both college and university, I worked a job, I married, I had a child of my own. Through it all I tried to behave myself.
But my fascination with windows never left me. They were always a place to go to dream, to be inspired, to remember, to survive and to be full of wonder.
I began my artistic career with window in April 2014. My life had seen some dramatic changes and I needed an outlet to re-identify myself. The very beautiful but old windows in my home had just been removed to allow for higher efficiency windows. When I asked the window installation person where my beautiful old windows would go he told me they went to the landfills.
My collection of windows amassed from there, quickly becoming an obsession – if only to keep them out of landfills. My contractor agreed to save all future window contracts for me. My collection grew and I was soon overcome with windows.
Then one day, I sat down with a paint brush and began. The ideas flowed onto the glass. I started with the memories from my childhood, pictures of the prairie trips to visit grandparents, flowers that I had a particular love for, animals that touched my life and bible scripture that stirred my soul. The ideas came fast and that is all I wanted to do.
Today I am able to say that I am an artist. I am more than that but I am very proud to be able to self identify as an artist. I started very late in my life because I was so certain that if I allowed by creative self to emerge I was no longer behaving, and that has been a huge loss for me.
But I am glad for my odyssey and all the things it has taught me. Even if it has taken me this long to embrace The Weird.
You know what they say better late than never. That that has been so very true for me.
I feel like I have arrived!
My windows were the creative gateway into this whimsical world. My life and experiences have become my inspiration.
Now that I have stepped through the glass, my creativity is no longer bound by constructs of “acceptable behaviour”. Everything is fair game and art is my full-time obsession; I can channel everything I have learned along the way into creating, exploring, and giving back to the community.
While windows will always be my passion, I’ve delved into working with wood, fabric, and basically anything else I can get my hands on. You can read more about this and see my works in the Gallery.
This has been an incredible part of my adventure and I’m excited to see where it takes me next!
In the meantime, I encourage you all to follow your passions so you too can become who you always dreamed you could be. And most of all…
Stay Weird~
-Glenda
Website written and arranged by JD \Writing\
