Gail Koebke

Gail currently lives in Calvert County, where she enjoys being retired. She spends most of her spare time creating stained glass items, when she is not on a camping trip with her husband, or travelling to a beautiful beach. Before retiring, Gail worked as an electronics technician for 25 years, with a soldering iron and solder on her bench. So, it’s ironic that her stained glass hobby would involve a bench, soldering iron, and solder.

Since childhood, she has always enjoyed creating things with her hands. Over the years she has worked with several types of crafts, including sewing, painting, crocheting, and needlepoint. She always had an appreciation for the talent and ability that goes into creating any type of craft or art, and wanted to challenge herself to see if she could do it. Since she retired all the other craft projects have been pushed aside, and now she only works with stained glass.

Gail always loved the look of stained glass, and was in awe of Louis Comfort Tiffany’s work. Tiffany created the method of using copper foil to create his stained glass art, and is the method that she uses to create her work. She knew this craft would be one she would try at some point. That point began in 2016, the year she retired.

Gail’s journey started with a weekend class, and as soon as she cut her first piece of glass she was hooked. She believes it’s an oxymoron to start out breaking a piece of glass and end up creating something beautiful, and then dare to call it art.

Gail is a member of several Facebook groups dedicated to the art of creating stained glass. She is a Moderator on one of them, and considered an Expert Contributor on another. On all of these Facebook pages she answers questions from others having problems with materials, tools, soldering, and most everything related to creating a stained glass project. In addition to answering questions, she has written “How-To” tutorials, and has made “How-To” videos demonstrating the use of a tool, or how to use a product.

In addition to displaying her pieces in the CalvART Gallery in Prince Frederick, MD, she participates in the annual Christmas Market held at the Episcopal Church in Sunderland, MD.