Robinson

Left, meet right.

And somewhere in between, you meet Elizabeth Robinson.

The co-owner of Professional Staffing Group and a glass artist says between her third-floor office and her basement glass studio, she utilizes her left brain and right brain skills and they “meet at the glass house on the first floor.”

She is, of course, referring to her retail location in Fondren Corner, and says she is unlike the typical artist.

“I’m a math person,” she says, “and it comes out in my glass.”

She’s also a musician. Robinson was a ‘fence-climbing’ small town girl who played drums and strings at Mississippi University for Women – the W -  in Columbus and put herself through college with a tune or two. She says she interprets her artistic work mathematically and rhythmically. ‘I could dance to this,’ someone once told her of her method for creating beautiful breakables like pieces she makes from single ‘blanks.’ “Each person who receives a piece is woven back to another.”

Learning her craft later in life under Andy Young at Pearl River Glass, Robinson says her daytime gig can best be described as the ‘artsy employment company.’

“We bring people together and match them up so it’s healthy for everyone,” she tells us.

And in her spare time — if there is any — she brings people together in her kitchen. “I like to give everyone a role to play and then help them create a masterpiece.”

That same creative energy is what Robinson loves about Fondren. She says the neighborhood is a model for other cities hoping to rebuild their core. And she, as an artist, says it’s people like her who help make it real.

Originally published in 2011