Business
Surgeon fired up about glass art
■ A Wisconsin physician spends his free time making and selling his own pieces made of kiln-formed glass.
By Tyler Chin — Posted June 12, 2006
Making sidelines pay
Doctors who branched out beyond running their practice tell why they did it, how they did it, and what you should know before you do it.
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Name: Steve Immerman, MD.
Specialty: General surgery.
Location: Eau Claire, Wis.
Business: Steve Immerman Kiln-formed Glass (link). The company sells kiln-formed glass art created by Dr. Immerman. Galleries also sell his works for $1,600 to $4,000 each.
Annual revenue: "I don't consider this a business," he said. "It's much more of a creative outlet and a stress reliever. ... Yes, I do sell things, but it's really more to just perpetuate my ability to do this."
Why he started the business: "I had been doing stained glass work since 1979," he said. "The whole idea of being able to manipulate glass in a kiln wasn't even available as an art form until the mid-'80s because you couldn't buy glass that you could mix and fuse colors together. ... I became acquainted with [kiln-formed glass] in the mid-'90s and started experimenting with it. It really took at least six or seven years before I had mastered it well enough to be actually making successful [art] projects."
Why he keeps practicing: "I enjoy being a surgeon and I enjoy creating glass art. If I became a full-time artist, it would turn creating art into a job, rather than a respite from the stress of being a surgeon."
Words of wisdom: "I think physicians are usually very talented people in one way and they may be talented in other ways that they have not tapped because our training is so science-oriented that we don't have time to explore what other artistic abilities we might have. ... I happened to luck on finding something that I not only enjoy, but it turned out that I was good at. But I did not know that was going to be the case at the start."
