About Kymm and Hold You Close

Kymm Ledbetter comes to Kansas by way of Southern California. She’s been an artist her entire life. And while it’s tempting to look at her training in graphic design at Pasadena Art Center as her initial credential for entering the art world, she knows that the combination of education and hard work that have enabled her to successfully establish her fused glass studio.

After moving from California to Kansas to raise a family, Kymm returned to her artistic roots. She attended Washburn University and graduated in 2000 with a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts. At Washburn Kymm discovered the medium of fused glass. After graduating she began teaching young people how to create fused glass art during summer “camps” at her home. When parents came to pick up their children, they saw the beautiful creations and asked to learn to make their own pieces. That was the beginning of Prairie Glass Studio which opened in 2012.

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Kymm began creating memorial keepsakes

enfolding cremains into fused glass art in 2016 when a family approached her about designing memorial keepsakes for a family member’s cremains. Later, three generations of the family were able to spend an afternoon together in the studio under Kymm’s guidance making their keepsake integrating a small portion of the cremains into fused glass. Not long after that request, a friend approached Kymm about creating an appropriate keepsake memorializing a dearly departed community member. Kymm responded with a collection of lovely pins, each a unique piece of art containing a sprinkling of cremains. A memorial pin was provided to everyone in the extended family. That experience led to requests from others for similar keepsakes and larger pieces of memorial art. In response, Kymm designed the pieces you see here . She also works with individuals to design custom keepsakes upon request.

We Do Custom Orders

Let Kymm and her team create a one-of-a-kind keepsake