I’m Linda Oeffling, owner of Rowanberry Studio. I’ve lived in rural areas outside of Chicago all of my life, currently residing in Spring Grove. I have had a wide variety of careers, including teaching Special Education, selling industrial plastics, working in the school library and then for a ballet studio. In 2006, I started a business, working remotely with a partner in digital design.

Through many career paths, my love for the art of glass has been a constant. The art I create is inspired by nature, where walking alone brings me grounding, peace, and connection to spirituality. I try to walk, and to create art, in liminal space, the space where all transformation takes place.

Walk through a meadow and view the impression of waving grass and glorious color, or slow down and find the minutiae in all of its infinite detail. My art pieces provide a meditative focus to absorb overall beauty or contemplation of the fine detail that makes up the whole.

The Rowan tree is a small but tough tree native to the British Isles. We know it here as Mountain Ash. I chose it for the studio name because of the folklore & history of the Rowan. English literature and folklore resonates with me. I can get lost in a good fantasy fiction book, feeling like there is magic in the world and also in creating art.

Rowan emphasizes the need for color and creative endeavor in our lives and encourages us to open our minds to creative inspiration. It also teaches us that we can draw on the forces of life to heal ourselves and those around us. We can develop the art of turning adversity into creative opportunity.

The tree is used within vibrational medicine due to the belief that it is able to tune our bodies into nature. It can broaden and open our perspective and make room for a wider imagination.

– Lesson of the Rowan, from The Wisdom of Trees by Jane Gifford

Liminal Space

It is the crossing over space, a space where you have left something behind, yet you are not yet fully in something else. Being in this space is an invitation to welcome something larger than self, trusting that we will be held and supported with whatever we need in order to navigate the uncertainty. – Alan Seale  Blog