Humming Line Creative Works has been in Colorado Springs since 1990. The founding artist, Maxine Grossman, first appeared locally in craft fairs and nationally in craft publications, packaging, and demonstrating in manufacturer booths at trade shows. Her work with manufacturers gave her a range of media experiences that was focused on polymer clay other plastic media.

Maxine's interest turned to glass early in the 2000s. Much of the first years of her exploration was with hot glass in the creation of unique lampwork beads. Maxine's skills expanded with each round of classes from well known lampwork artists. Her bead creations were sold at bead shows and in bead stores in Colorado Springs, Denver and Albuquerque. It didn't take long for mediums of expressions in glass to grow to include stained, fused, slumped and mosaic.

Early works were shown in Albuquerque. Later in the expansion, a showroom had sprouted at Maxine's home in northeast Colorado Springs. An annual open house was started, too. The event grew with the addition of other artist's work, as many as eight at it's peak. Very early in this decade, Maxine's glass work began to appear galleries in Maitou Springs, Old Colorado City, and Colorado Springs. Maxine's experiences while working with a young co-op emphasised the value of working with other artists to promote themselves collectively.

In late summer 2015, an opportunity to open an offsite gallery appeared and Humming Line Gallery opened at 4851 Barnes Rd on November 29, 2015. The collection on display was from Maxine and six other Pikes Peak area artists. Featured Artists and Meet the Artist programs were added in 2016.

Maxine Grossman

From the artist herself:

I have always loved art. My father was an artist so its not a surprise that I ended up being one myself. After graduating high school and getting married, I got a job decorating cakes. Once I started having children, I wanted to contribute to our income and still be able to be a part of my children's lives. I have also been interested in crochet and sewing, so I started making items to sell at local craft shows. My first publication was a crochet pattern in Annie's Attic. I wanted to try lots of different media so what I was making and selling changed all the time. I started working with bread-dough until all the ornaments I kept for us got ruined one year. I switched to ceramics, which actually turned out to be much messier than bread-dough. Next I discovered Friendly Plastic, and polymer clay. That led me into the craft industry. I became a Certified Professional Demonstrator by the now defunct Hobby Industry Association and had several designs published in craft books and magazines. I added rubber stamping and was a Stampin' Up demonstrator for a few of years. That was followed by paper crafting, and then glass etching. Since craft magazine editors kept telling me to "dumb down" my designs, I decided to take a break and further my art education by going back to school. I had so much fun taking these new classes; watercolor, figure and other drawing classes.

All the time, I wanted something would hold color better. The watercolor would wind up fading... I had always wanted to work with glass but had never tried it. I had seen someone make a glass sculpture and had been flabbergasted. As a teen, I made things with melted plastic cups, thinking it would be similar to melting glass. I bought my first lampworking set up from a catalog and then things started progressing rather quickly. Today, I get to do what I've always wanted to do. I make lampwork beads, I fuse glass, I slump glass, I create original stained glass pieces. I also make beaded jewelry with my lampwork beads. I love working with all the brightly colored glass to making new beads and compose fused and stained pieces in my studio. There is almost nothing as exciting as going out to the studio the morning after a firing and opening the kiln to see what surprises it holds for me!

I hope you to enjoy the work that I do! I invite you to take look around my website! Maybe you can have for yourself a little piece of my passion! :)