We all arrive at art in our own way. For some it’s a happy accident, and for others it might begin in the bleakest of circumstances. So it goes for this year’s glass, ceramics, and sculpture ArtWorks artists — each brings a different story to the Festival. While we don’t have time to cover them all, here are a few.

David Perkins of LeRoy creates his glass sculptures with a torch and borosilicate (Pyrex). He, like many others, fell into art through a combination of happenstance and a teacher’s care.

“To the best of my recollection, it was 50 years ago that I discovered working glass with a torch,” he says. “I had long been fascinated by the theme park flameworkers, so when Mary Kay Nelson in my high school science class told me about a person making a large spun glass ship downtown at Fandel’s Department store, I had to go.”

Perkins watched the man for two hours as he finished the ship, and was late for supper that night. The next school day his science instructor offered him an unopened glassblowing kit to try, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Kevin Matthews of Brainerd uses ceramics to work through a heavier history. Having lost several important people before anyone should lose anyone, Matthews learned to embrace the hardship; he turned to clay. While the medium has changed his life for the better after years of grieving, the artist now looks to share the peace he’s found with others as a professional artist and a teacher.

While finding yourself through art can spark the desire to teach, in Sandra Haff’s case it was the other way around. A sculptor from Minneapolis, Haff began as the director and lead artist of an arts organization that served chronically homeless women. For thirteen years, she shared her art with those she served and witnessed first-hand how they flourished through creating and selling their art. Haff decided to seek her own artistic niche in 2012. And the rest, as they say …

Be sure to check out all of this year’s visual artists on our website at austinareaarts.org, and don’t be afraid to ask for stories from the artists themselves this August. You never know what you’ll learn.