There are moments when several seemingly inconsequential events collide to change the course of one’s life. For Susan Butler, a Texas glass artisan, her turning point began during a casual conversation with a friend.

After a fast-tracked accounting career in Houston during the oil boom, Butler moved to San Antonio with her husband, Steve, to raise their family. But she couldn’t find any part-time work that really inspired her, so she began toying with the idea of working in a field that might provide a creative challenge and an income, as well as allow her to be an attentive mother to two young daughters.

Then during a party, an acquaintance mentioned that she had started stringing beads for some extra cash. The idea stuck in Butler’s mind and started to percolate … and the next thing Butler knew, she was buying beads.

“I’ve always been an amateur musician, and the thought of working with my hands again was very appealing,” she says. “In fact, my work became an obsession almost immediately. As soon as I picked up the pliers, it was as though they were magnetized to me. I just couldn’t put them down.”

After learning the ropes and “clawing” her way into the business, Butler set up factory production with 26 employees to supply boutiques, department stores and other outlets nationally, as well as the QVC channel. But the jewelry market started to change … and she was forced to make a painful decision.

“I’d really always thought of myself as a businesswoman,” Butler reflects, “but when inexpensive silver from Mexico entered the market, my options were either to start importing from China or reinvent myself as an artist.”

And reinvent she did.

Each of her handcrafted pieces of glass jewelry is truly a work of art. Butler admits she’s always been a color junkie and found inspiration in the work of glass sculptor Dale Chihuly, and more recently through mobile artist Alexander Calder.

Her collection, Con Brio, a music term meaning “with brilliance,” is made by melting glass sticks with a torch into intricate floral designs and then baking at nearly 1,000 degrees in her studio kiln.

While the growth of the Internet market has certainly influenced her business model in recent years, Butler feels it’s important to personally attend art shows and hold her own events to keep in touch with her customers. In her experience, her buyers tend to be drawn to color like she is, and they tend to enjoy wearing something that often becomes a conversation piece.

Butler’s lamp work (the term for her form of small-scale glassmaking) can also be customized and special-ordered for a particular client or found at Texas museums and galleries like the McNay Museum of Art, the San Antonio Museum of Art, Gallery Vetro and Art Inc. in San Antonio.

But it’s the pleasure her work brings others that really gives her the most satisfaction.

“A gentleman came to me with a photo of his wife and information about the activities she enjoys so we could create a necklace just for her,” Butler says. “When it was done, he asked her to wear a special outfit that he knew would go well with the piece and surprised her in the studio. They called later to tell me that she gets compliments on the necklace wherever she goes.”

So what turn of events might be in her future? “Glasswork has been an obsession in my life now for so long; I don’t see that changing,” she says. “Besides, I love making others happy by sharing my art with them.”

For more information about Con Brio Beads and Susan Butler, visit www.conbriobeads.com or www.conbriobeads.etsy.com.