By Alesha Capone
Daniella Acciarito says that for creative people, there are no boundaries when it comes to working with glass.
Acciarito and her partner Michael run RuMa Creative Art Studio, which is based at Wyndham Art Works in Laverton North.
The site is run by the Wyndham Community Arts Alliance, to provide artists and cultural groups with working spaces and studios.
Acciarito, who has been president of the organisation for the past seven years, said she has always loved art.
“My mum would do adult art classes at Werribee Tech (now Wyndham Central College) in ceramics and she did a stained glass course with Reg Loats at his Werribee studio when l was in my early teens,” she said.
“I told my mum that one day I would learn stained glass too.”
Acciarito said she first learned the art of stained glass nearly 30 years ago.
When her teacher and mentor Annette Valentan retired 15 years ago, Acciarito started teaching Valentan’s other students.
“I began teaching at a small community centre in Laverton about 25 years ago and loved it,” she said.
“I’ve always been a people person and I love to talk.”
Acciarito teaches at Wyndham Art Works and also hopes to start a class at the Wyndham Park Community Shed next year.
“The main reason I teach, as well as do demonstrations of the craft at fairs and festivals, is to help keep this very old craft alive – people in general find it all so fascinating,” Acciarito said.
“Stained glass is such a fabulous medium to work with, you don’t need to be particularly artistic or crafty to do it, it’s more about the skill and techniques.”
Acciarito is a versatile artist, also working in pottery, ceramics, painting, drawing, embroidering, sculpting and woodworking.
“l have 10 different things on the go all of the time,” she said.
“I’ll be making glass space-inspired pieces while making ceramic mushroom houses and embroidering monstera leaves and making little witch potion bottles.
“I thrive on creative chaos though sometimes it’s hard to keep up with myself.”
Acciarito described herself as RuMa’s “creative” person while Michael is the studio’s social media and marketing face.
“Often our kids get involved with helping out at the big markets and festivals where we do demonstrations and sell our work at,” she said.
“We have a couple of huge events coming up in the new year, including The Lost Trades Festival in Bendigo and the Drysdale Festival of Glass.”
Details: www.facebook.com/RuMaCreativeArtStudio
