Meet Bambi Lerner
There is something about glass – its colors, depth, versatility and the plethora of things that can be created with it that brought out the deeply hidden artist in Bambi. Her journey started with stained glass, but it wasn’t until she found flameworking in 2009 that her passion fully blossomed. It also didn’t hurt that she loves fire. One of her great achievements was being the first at her summer camp to win the One Match award, building a roaring campfire using only wood and a single match.
Her introduction to flameworking was facilitated using a Groupon for a beadmaking class given by Fiamma Glass in the Boston, MA area. Bambi took the class to distract herself from the pressure of being back in school to get her PhD (in health services research).
There she was introduced to some of the flameworking greats such as Kristina Logan, Stephanie Sersich, Wes Fleming and of course the Fiamma owners, Trina Urrata and David Weintraub. She was also lucky enough to take a class with Loren Stump at Corning…Twice!!! Now, with all the new online classes being offered as a result of COVID (a stroke of ingenuity), she has been able to learn even more skills from Jeri Warhaftig, Andrew Pollack and Terry Henry. Bambi has already signed up for classes as a result of attending the 2021 ISGB. She finds building skills and expanding on techniques at least as much fun as creating.
Bambi’s current art focus is creating underwater ocean scenes via sculpture and beads. She is a SCUBA diver and finds the underwater world surreal, beautiful and zen-like and wants to bring it to life when above water as well. Bambi is also trying to master blowing cups but that’s been more of a challenge than expected. Fortunately, now having a studio in her garage in Boca Raton, FL, she has lots of access to the equipment for practice, practice, practice!!
Although she is looking forward to spending more time in the studio, Bambi is still working. She started her career as a genetic counselor, working with families with inherited diseases. She went on to work in the field of genomics medicine as a product manager for a genetic testing company, teaching genetic counseling graduate students and currently conducting research into the delivery and quality of genomic medicine for the Veterans Hospital Association (VA).
Bambi is also an avid tennis and pickleball player and is so lucky to be spending a couple of months in the beautiful Rocky Mountains hiking and biking. Seeing as much of the world as possible is always high on her bucket list. She was on the trip of her lifetime in Africa when it got cut short due to border shutdowns at the beginning of the pandemic. Bambi is definitely looking forward to getting back out into the world.
Bambi is also the proud parent (of course) of two amazing adult boys and one newly acquired daughter-in-law, and hopefully soon to be daughter-in-law. She has two cockapoos and last but not least, her wonderful husband, Michael, of 38 years!
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