Meet Cindy - The Artist Behind Cimply Broken

~~See The Brilliance

I'm Cindy, the artist and maker behind Cimply Broken, a small, independent glass-art business in North Carolina.

I work with stained glass, fused glass, mosaics, glass jewelry, suncatchers, and other and other forms of original glass artwork. Many pieces start with an idea and usually involve a fair amount of broken glass along the way.

Hence the name.

Cimply Broken.

But there's more to the name than broken glass.

I've always been fascinated by the way something that appears broken, ordinary, or imperfect can become something beautiful when you look at it differently. That's a big part of what I try to capture in my work.

And there's another part of that story that matters to me.

I believe God's grace has a way of taking what is broken and making it beautiful again.

That's something I see not only in my artwork, but in life.

Glass can be broken, rearranged, transformed, and given a new purpose. I believe people can be, too.

That's one of the reasons the name Cimply Broken means more to me than broken pieces of glass.

Broken doesn't mean worthless. Sometimes it simply means there's another kind of beauty waiting to be revealed.

Glass, Stories & A Little Bit of Meaning

I don't want every piece to look manufactured or perfectly predictable.

I like the little surprises that happen when glass is cut, arranged, fused, layered, and brought together.

Sometimes the glass tells me what it wants to become.

My work includes stained glass, fused glass, mosaics, handmade glass jewelry, pendants, suncatchers, and other original glass artwork.

Some pieces are decorative. Some are functional. Some are simply things that caught my eye and refused to leave me alone until I figured out what to do with them.

And yes—sometimes the name of a piece comes after I've made it.

Sometimes it comes first.

Sometimes I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing until I'm halfway through it.

That's part of the fun.

Made by Hand. Not Mass Produced.

Cimply Broken isn't a factory, and I'm not trying to make it one.

I am an independent artist creating things in small quantities, often one piece at a time.

That means a piece you purchase may be something you won't see again—or if you do, the next one probably won't be exactly the same.

There are decisions made along the way, unexpected pieces of glass that turn out to be exactly what was needed, and occasionally a piece that doesn't work at all.

That's part of handmade art.

Perfect isn't always the goal.

Sometimes the goal is to make something that makes you stop and look.