The way light dances through the hand-cut pieces of glass in Mare Schelz’s intricate stained-glass mosaics reveals her deep love for nature, her reverence for movement and flow, and the joy she finds in creating art, and sharing it with others. Each piece she creates is a luminous reflection of the natural world that surrounds her and the inspiration that it brings to her life daily.
A Bend resident for more than 30 years, Schelz has been an artist for as long as she can remember. Born and raised outside New York City, she grew up immersed in art and creativity. “My mom was an artist – a painter,” Schelz reflects and she recalls trips to NYC with her mom to look at art – especially Tiffany stained-glass windows – all of which left a lasting impression. “Mr. Tiffany grew up about 20 minutes from where I did,” Schelz recalls. “We used to go into the city to see his stained glass.”
Early encouragement, particularly from an influential high school art teacher, set Schelz on a lifelong creative path. “I did a bit of stained glass in high school,” notes Schelz. After moving west, Schelz attended Southern Oregon University (then Southern Oregon State College) where she studied art and explored fiber arts, weaving, and papermaking. Her journey continued at the Penland School of Craft in North Carolina where she began blowing glass, a process by which molten glass is gathered on a hollow pipe, expanded with breath, shaped by tools and heat, then allowed to cool and solidify. “I was a Core Resident Artist there for two years and I began to work with glass a lot.”
Having experienced the art of traditional stained glass early on, Schelz found the medium too rigid. The precision and toxicity of soldering didn’t align with her instincts. Mosaic stained glass work, however, felt different and just seemed to fit. It felt freer, more intuitive. “It was more ‘me’,” she explains. “I am not Type A—I like things to move.”
That sense of movement runs through all of Schelz’s work. Inspired primarily by nature, her mosaics often depict rivers, birds, mountains, and a sense of flow. Ravens are a recurring subject, as are spirals, mandalas, and fractal-inspired designs. “Nature is my biggest inspiration,” she says. “That’s where everything comes from for me.”
Her process reflects that organic sensibility. Schelz begins with only a loose idea, sketching lightly onto a clear glass base before cutting and arranging colored glass pieces, along with other small items such as glass beads, by hand. “I go into the studio with a very slight idea,” Schelz explains. “and then I just let the colors and the pieces create what I’m doing.” Each shard is glued into place, then grouted—often in black, which adds contrast and definition while still allowing light to shine through. The result is a piece that feels fluid, layered, and alive. No two are ever the same. “You can’t recreate a piece exactly,” she says. “That’s the nature of the glass, it’s totally different every time.”
For years, before her mosaic stained glass art became her focus, Schelz worked as an educator, first as a wilderness leader, later as an art teacher in classrooms around Central Oregon. She also taught after-school from a small studio space behind her home. “I taught art classes every day after school to local kids, I was ‘the artist in the classroom’ at several schools and worked on several large mosaic projects with students at Three Rivers School in Sunriver,” she reflects. Teaching reinforced her belief that art is about observation. “Art lets your mind meander. It puts you in a different flow and makes you really look at the world. Art is all about looking—it is all around you.”
A pivotal moment came when Schelz and her husband purchased a glass tile business. Working with leftover glass scraps and shards sparked the beginning of her mosaic stained-glass art as it exists today.
In 2012, Schelz created her first mosaic piece that caught the attention of a local bakery owner. “Katy Clabough, owner of Nancy P's Cafe and Bakery, saw my first mosaic and wanted to display it at the bakery,” Schelz notes. Her work quickly found a home at the bakery, where Schelz’s first mosaic still hangs. Today, her stained-glass pieces continue to adorn the café’s windows, glowing with shifting light throughout the day, each piece offered for sale.
Schelz now creates and sells between 100 and 120 pieces each year, working almost daily in her home studio—an historic building on her property dating back to the early 1900’s. Originally part of the townsite near Tumalo Reservoir, the structure was moved multiple times before landing in its current location (in Schelz’s backyard) in the 1960s. Filled with natural light and creative energy, it serves as the heart of her practice. “This building has such a long history,” she says. “It feels right to be creating something new inside it.”
Her mosaics appear in a variety of forms, from antique window frames to old clocks to doors—even vintage Chevy doors—and large-scale commissioned installations. For many pieces, her husband builds custom wooden frames. Though each piece takes a different amount of time, many require around ten hours to complete.
Travel is another source of inspiration for Schelz. She photographs landscapes wherever she goes, whether in Sedona, Arizona—where her mother lived for decades—or in Europe. Early in her mosaic journey, she even drew inspiration from vintage postcards. “My first mosaics were created to reflect the postcards,” she says.
Today her artistic creations continue to resonate far beyond her studio. Collectors of her mosaics often send her photos showing how light transforms their pieces throughout the day. “I just received one this morning,” she notes. “A Tumalo Falls piece with the sunrise behind it. They’re beautiful in every environment.”
For Schelz, art has always been about more than creation. It’s about curiosity, inquiry, connection and generosity. “I hope my art brings light and color into people's lives,” she emphasizes. “They all have a little magic in them that transforms light and color.”
Find Mare Schelz's mosaic stained glass art for sale at Nancy P’s Cafe and Bakery in Bend and at The Open Door in Sisters. Also find six large pieces of her mosaic stained glass art on display at the Unity Spiritual Community of Central Oregon in Bend. Email for information: artplaylife@gmail.com