Laura was featured in the most recent issue of The Blue Room, a Portland photodocumentary publication!

Color is a very powerful healer," says stained glass artist Laura Fuller as she explains the intentions behind the healing chakra panels she's working on.

Chakras are energy sites aligned along the spine. Chakra, a Sanskrit term meaning wheel, stabilizes and harmonizes the body, and each chakra holds different healing properties and is energized by its own color range.

"Whatever color you are attracted to is (the color) you need to heal," Laura says.

It's hard not to be attracted to Laura's Congress Street studio and gallery, Fuller Glass. A former owner of the Hay Gallery, Laura rented the old dark and dingy trading post across the street from the Munjoy Hill Fire station in May of 2006 and spent the better part of six months renovating the space.

She knocked out the drop ceilings to reveal the remnants of an old pharmacy, complete with shelves just high enough to house her antique bottle collection away from curious fingers, but low enough to keep them prominently displayed — as well as a shabby chic tin ceiling and tons of natural light.

"The neighborhood was so supportive," Laura says of her decision to open her gallery on Munjoy Hill. "So many people walk by here all day and night. They're happy to have something nice to look at."

Inside, soft summer sunshine warms Laura's studio where mounds of seaglass, healing stones and ancient Chinese prayer circles cover the tables; she is currently working on no less than nine projects, most of them commissioned. Laura studied art history in Paris after high school in Bath and even briefly attended the Portland School of Art (now MECA) but she credits her success as a glass artist as a gift from her daughter Delaney.

When Delaney was just a baby she was diagnosed with Hurler's Syndrome, a genetic enzyme deficiency that prevents the body from breaking down the waste product that occurs when cells reproduce. Most children with Hurler's Syndrome don't live to be five years old; Delaney made it to nine and a half.

Laura became interested in glass art in the early 1990s when she was attracted to a seaglass lampshade made by a friend.

"I thought it was so beautiful," she muses. "I instantly became fascinated with found objects, objects that are worn with age and use. I think imperfections are what make beauty, rather than something all perfect and new."

After Delaney's diagnosis, Laura needed a job that allowed her to work from home while she was taking care of her daughter. She decided to turn her hobby into a business and started making stained glass relief panels with antique bottles. The bottles represented people being trapped in a container, not having a choice as to which body they're born with — like Delaney. She began selling her work right away.

The panels were three dimensional, made the same way Tiffany used to make antique lamps, Laura says. Each piece of glass is foiled with copper and soldered together. Laura doesn't use any lead in her work since she was diagnosed with lead poisoning. Instead she uses a blend of copper, tin and silver.

A man purchased one of the panels at an Old Port pottery store where the work was displayed and inquired about a second one immediately. When Laura took Delaney to a cardiologist a short time later, the doctor asked her what she did for a living. When he learned she was a stained glass artist, they both realized he had been the man who purchased her work.

"That happens to me a lot," she says of the coincidence.

Soon after Delaney's death Laura says she felt a push to make a panel of butterflies and dragonflies.

"I never felt compelled to do that before," Laura says," that was her."

Laura was living on Morning Street when a giant dragonfly landed on her screen. She put her face up to the window, but the dragonfly remained unfazed. Laura took pictures of the giant insect and later when it had flown away and she went to close the window, she found a page of Delaney's coloring book where the dragonfly had been. After talking to other people about her experience with the dragonfly, Laura learned that in Native American Culture dragonflies represent messengers between heaven and earth, and in Chinese culture they bring messages to the living from the dead. She believes the dragonfly was a communication from Delaney.

"It was mind blowing to learn that," Laura says. "I was having all of these weird experiences with dragonflies."

Delaney sent Laura a dragonfly just before her appearance on HGTV. The taping was scheduled shortly before Laura was diagnosed with lead poisoning. She says she didn't feel prepared to tape the segment and asked her daughter for a small favor.

"I just kept, in my head, I said 'Delaney, I know it's a lot to ask, but if you could just send me a dragonfly right now I would fee a lot better,'" Laura recalls.

At that moment Laura says she felt compelled to check the mailbox at her studio. Inside was a box that contained a dragonfly. It had been sent days before by one of Laura's favorite antique dealers. Attached was a note from the dealer that simply said we felt compelled to send this to you.

Now, Laura's art is being used as a vehicle to heal others. She was commissioned by Cabot Creamery of Vermont to create a healing chakra panel for the opening of the Comprehensive Breast Care Associates Institute in Bensalem, Penn. Dr. Beth Dupree sent Laura a book she had writtten, the cover was decorated with dragonflies. Laura sent back a thank you note and inquired to Dupree her reasons for sending the book. She explained the significance of dragonflies in her life.

"Dragonflies mean my daughter is around," she says.

During the opening celebration for the hospital, Dupree told the story of Delaney. Laura was asked by Cabot to create a chakra panel that would heal people just by looking at it. The result is the Cabot Chakra Window, a panel that is six feet tall, two feet wide and encompasses healing properties for the body's seven chakras. Each chakra and each stone has distinct healing properties.

When she began the project Laura began looking into the healing properties of stones. She read "Anatomy of the Spirit," by Caroline Myss for inspiration and set to work. Before long the woman from Cabot came down to view her progress.

"She said, 'that's it,'" Laura says of the woman's reaction.

The woman had been trying to get the panel made for 10 years, but until Laura, could not find an artist who understood her vision. Since then, Laura has created other healing panels, including a heart chakra panel that she started making, but didn't know why.

A few days later a woman came in and asked if the panel was sold.

"It's not even made yet," Laura says as she gestures to the stones displayed on her work-table, and it's already sold.

Laura doesn't make anything for herself. The only panel she hangs in her home is the original butterfly panel she was compelled to make by Delaney. Instead, she reaps the benefits of the panels during their creation — the pieces of jade from China, the smooth edges of the healing stone and the ancient prayer circles that are more than 2,000 years old.

"I get the benefit of (the panels) the whole time I'm working on the pieces," she says. "I just really want to keep the flow of things going for other people. I just start doing it and (the pieces), they just kinda become what they're supposed to."

What started out as a small operation in Laura's home has blossomed into something she never even considered and has touched the lives of hundreds of people — with a little help from some dragonflies.

"I never imagined I would be doing this," Laura says. "It's turned into something I never even conceived of."