Hi, my name is Nancy Holt and I live around our nation's capital during the week but on the weekends I go down to my get-a-way house on the lake.  That is where I have set up my little studio, which explains the name of my business.  During the week, I am a government contractor working on computer software and on the weekends I let loose my creativity by working with my torch.  Oh, by the way, I just retired from the Army Reserves as a LTC.	This is me driving my pontoon boat on a cold October day.
Jenny, Justin and Evan in Florida.	I  have three children and a wonderful husband.   My children Jennifer, Kurt and Evan all have CF which has not stopped them.  My daughter had a bi-lateral lung transplant a couple of years ago and went on to marry a wonderful man she met in high school, Justin and continued to persue her college degree while working.  Kurt is persuing a college career in IT and is hoping for a career in that area.  Evan is my youngest and is high school.  He enjoys snowboarding and jetskiing as well as helping me in my studio making his own lampwork beads.
How did I get into lampworking.  Here is the long version.  I have been doing crafts such as needle point, cross stich, and crocheting for years.  In 2002, after serving six months in Bosnia where I saw some beautiful handmade lace, I came home and started crocheting tableclothes and doilies like the ones I saw over there.  I did this obsessively for about a year until I developed tendonitus is my left arm and had to find a different hobby for awhile.	Here I am in Bosnia with the COMSFOR and my American and Bosnian office mates.
This is me in my basement studio.  I don't like having my picture taken.	I just fell into making beaded jewelry while on a trip visiting my mother in Wyoming and started hanging around the local bead stores.  I became a real bead-aholic.  I was in such a store when I found out they were about to start a lampwork bead class.  Being a curious sole I stayed for the class.  The first time I started to wind the globs of molten glass around a mandrel I was hooked.  That was back in May 2005.
As in most things I have done I became obsessed with lampworking.  My motto has been: "If its worth doing, its worth being obsessive about."   I even took a class with Ann Scherm Baldwin in Virginia Beach in my quest to perfect my style.  I am particularly fond of making sculptured beads such as  mermaids, faeries and animals.  They are querky little beads but fun to make.  Each one seems to have its own story that comes to me as the bead is "born".	My friend, Becky, learning to make lampwork beads.
All beads are annealed using this Jen Ken kiln.	Since I only get to make beads on the weekends I design a lot of them in my head or on paper before I even get to my little makeshift studio.  I hope to be able to retire from my 9-5 job in a couple of years and do this full time.  My husband has even talked about having a traveling studio so that we can see the country by motor home and still satisfy my addiction for beads.  Neat idea, don't you think?