Scattered Glass, photo by Janelle Bendycki
When artist Laura Beth Konopinski was asked by her longtime friend Julie to create a piece of art memorializing Julie’s father out of his ashes, neither of them knew what the end result would be.
Julie’s family wanted to spread her father’s ashes all over the world, as he had been an avid adventurer, but years and years passed and the family was never able to coordinate that trip. Instead, Julie entrusted her father’s ashes to Konopinski and asked her to use her artistic talents to create a lasting memorial.
With those ashes, Konopinski created the first Wish Stone, encapsulating cremains between layers of glass. “And when [Julie] received the piece, I was shocked at how emotional she was,” Konopinski said. “She said to me, ‘This is so beautiful and amazing to have. You have to do this for other people.’”
People memorialize a loved one who has died in many ways — by scattering their ashes in a special location, plant-ing a tree or keeping their ashes in a decorative urn. Konopinski’s company, Scattered Glass, provides people with the opportunity to honor and remember a loved one in a way that keeps them close.
Through different glass sculpting techniques, Konopinski creates a piece of art containing the ashes of a loved one. In addition to Wish Stones, she offers jewel-ry and other custom pieces.
“They want to hold a memory and try to remember their loved ones in a positive way,” Konopinski said about clients com-ing to her. “And something with glass, something even as simple as selecting a certain color, can really resonate with people.”
Konopinski has been sculpting with glass since 2004. As an artist, she has been doing commission work and her own creative projects for many years. It wasn’t until 2016 that she officially launched Scattered Glass.
“I had never done something like that before,” Konopinski said. “However, in my own personal work I have been incorporating different organic materials and I’ve been using different processes to preserve the organic materials. So, I was kind of familiar with how I could go about doing that.”
Konopinski created a line of products called the Remembrance Series, focusing on creating smaller glassworks. Scattered Glass sends a collection kit specifically for collecting ashes, allowing people all over the country to ship ash-es to her studio in Kingstowne.
“A lot of the pieces I make are typically smaller pieces,” she said. “People want to keep them with them — wear it around their neck or keep it in a pocket.”
The idea for the name Scattered Glass came from the idea of scattering ashes. Wish stones, like the ones Konopinski made for her friend Julie, can be given to family members or left somewhere meaningful, much like the way some-one would scatter ashes, as Julie did.
“She was really scattering his ashes where they were supposed to go,” Konopinski said.
Konopinski is very passionate about working with a family to create a piece or series of pieces that will properly honor their lost family member or pet.
“Folks come to me in different stages of the grieving process,” she said. “I’m very honored to help... wherever they are in that process of losing someone.”
She is currently enrolled in classes at the University of Vermont to become an End of Life Doula to better under-stand the stages of grief and how to best communicate with her clients as they go through the grieving process. Konopinski is very dedicated to inclusivity and caters to any belief system.
While Konopinski does do custom work, the website is a good starting place for conversations about how to best honor someone. It takes about four to six weeks to get an order returned, and around the holidays extra time may be needed.
If you would like to order memorial glass-work, visit scatteredglass.com.