Marty Mead has been a glass artist since 1973, studying traditional stained glass with Judy Raffael, (now know as Judy North).  In 1981, she traveled to Chartres France to study with Roger Darricarrere.Her recent passion to the torch resulted from a workshop given by her early student, Leah Fairbanks.  The many years of working with glass and her painting experience, made it an easy transition for this new love affair.In 2008, she attended an advanced bead making seminar in Murano, Italy with Leah Fairbanks and Andrea Guarino-Slemmons.Marty has been teaching glass art at the College of Marin since 1978 and won the College of Marin’s Academic Senate Award for Community Education Teacher of the Year in 2006.  Her teaching has taken her to the Banff Center for the Arts in Alberta, Canada, where she introduced stained glass as a fine art.  In 1982, she testified before the California Assembly as the expert in the field on changing AB3299 to include stained glass as a fine art.  She has specialized in commissioned stained glass for private homes and autonomous panels for galleries.  She is also a painter, teaching watercolor at the College of Marin since 1995.Marty has been inspired by her Pima Indian and Mexican heritage.  The Corn Necklace came from a dream image, and was created as a tribute to this sacred food source.Her art was featured in a Japanese magazine. Art Pictorial, Vol9, “Spirit and Tradition in American Artists, Ms. Martha Ronay Meade, September 1996. A bead from the Salmon Series, was selected for the permanent collection in the Lampwork Museum in KOBE Japan.Presently, Marty shares her studio with other bead makers, and has hosted annual workshops with Leah Fairbanks. Other guest artists to her studio have included: John Winter of West Virginia, Katherine Wadsworth from Louisiana. Bead making on Monday and Thursday mornings continues to be a special gathering of friends. Because of this collaboration, the group became known as the Arroyo Road Bead Collective.

* She is the recipient of a California Arts Council Grant, Marin Arts Council Community Grant. A stained glass series depicting San Geronimo landscape, is now part of the permanent art collection at the San Geronimo Community Center. It was designed by Marty, and executed by Valley students under her direction.