Michelle has owned and operated her own glass studio, Glass Dancing, in Bend Oregon since 1994 and worked with Ice Fire Glassworks for several years prior to that.

Her interests include doing things outdoors and traveling with animals. She owned a sled dog team of 9 for ten years, which took her to Alaska for a winter with her team to help a friend train an Iditarod team. “I thought I would like to run the Iditarod for my fortieth birthday but after a winter of training dogs at that intensity I decided it was too much like a job. My dogs had enjoyed distance training and were willing to do this but they were not as enthusiastic as they were for the shorter distances.”

Michelle was also a wilderness ranger on horseback for the US Forest Service for five summers packing into the Three Sisters Wilderness four days a week. She still rides her faithful Arabian Snickers anytime she is not in the studio. He is eighteen now and been her companion since he was a yearling.

Another place Michelle’s interest in travel has taken her is to Africa where she rode horses with zebras , elephants, and giraffes in Botswana and in Zimbabwe. “This is the most spectacular riding, traveling I’ve ever done. To sleep hearing lions roar is just too much to describe. I hope to do more of this sort of travel in the future.”

The year 1999 was a very exciting year for Michelle as, upon returning from Africa, she spent the next several months producing ten one of a kind pieces of glass that were a commission for a private Boeing 737 owned by a European Business man. This project was done in conjunction with one of her galleries, Kittrell Riffkind Art Glass and RWR Designs both of Dallas, Texas. “I found this work to be very invigorating as I had to push myself pretty hard to figure out how to give these people the glass they were dreaming of. It was great fun and I would like to do more commission work in the future.”

The year 2000 started out with another commission for a couple in Seattle, WA creating a wall installation. Michelle is dreaming of her next trip. Maybe to Tibet or Iceland but says “I’ll have to figure out the time thing.”