When Tish Adams got burned out at her Kansas City corporate job at Sprint, she saw her future as clear as glass stained glass that is.

Adams two weeks ago opened Glass on Mass, a specialty store at 1103 Mass. that provides lessons and sells tools and supplies to people interested in making their own stained-glass creations.

Tish Adams said she believes Lawrence's active art community will provide a good customer base for her new business, Glass on Mass, 1103 Mass.

“I left the corporate world to spend my days doing something I love, and stained glass is definitely something I love,” Adams said. “And I love Lawrence and I think it is a great art community. It seems like we’ll be filling a niche that needs to be filled. Before, people pretty much had to go to Kansas City or Topeka to get their stained-glass supplies.”

The store will sell locally produced stained-glass pieces, but Adams said she is hoping most of her business comes from people taking classes on how to create stained-glass works who then subsequently buy their supplies from the store.

“It is really easy to learn,” Adams said. “The wonderful thing about stained glass is that lots of people admire it but think they could never do it, but that’s usually not true.

“People think it must be some mysterious process but really it is not. It is just a matter of learning from a good teacher, and then with some practice, most people can master it.”

Lawrence resident Harvey Murphy, a 13-year stained glass veteran, serves as the store’s instructor.

“It is both an art and a craft, and that is what really appeals to me,” Murphy said. “You can be an artist in creating your own pattern and you can be a craftsman in putting the glass pieces together.”

The store already has seven people who have either completed or are currently completing classes. Adams offers two types of classes: a one-day, eight-hour session; or a four-week program with four three-hour classes. She charges roughly $10 an hour for both classes.

Adams also will rent out studio space to people who want to take up the hobby but maybe don’t have the room at their home. But Adams said one of the most appealing aspects about the craft was its ease to enter.

To get started in the craft usually requires an investment of less than $200, consisting of a glass cutter, a couple of specialty pliers, a grinder, a soldering iron and either lead or special copper foil used to help fuse the glass pieces together.

Adams said she thought the store would be a success in Lawrence.

“I think people will really take to it because Lawrence is such a strong arts community,” she said. “And I think people will find that it is a really good leisure hobby because you can do a little bit at a time and still have a nice piece.

“And plus, it is just so pretty. I love the color behind it and how the glass always seems to be changing when the light hits it just a little bit differently. It’s real easy to get hooked.”