Lloyd Bondy wants to make the most of October as Breast Cancer Awareness Month and is auctioning off a stained glass art piece on eBay to raise money for the Puget Sound affiliate of the Susan G. Komen Foundation.

Bondy, a Maple Valley resident, created a breast cancer awareness piece as part of his Windows of Diversity line for his stained glass art business, Double Pane Art Glass Creations.

“It’s an 18-inch circle … eight figures in a circle with a pink ribbon in the center,” he said. “I built this piece specifically for auctioning off so that 100 percent of the proceeds go to the Susan G. Komen Foundation.”

His artwork in stained glass was initially inspired by a phone call about putting in panels in windows in his home that face his next door neighbor’s home which Bondy said is about 10 feet away.

He called a stained glass window company in Seattle and asked what it would cost.

“I thought it would be cool to put in stained glass,” he said. “They said it would be $500 for a window. So, I said, ‘How much for a class?’ They said, ‘It’s $125.'”

That made it an easy decision. He took the class.

It was also easy for him to find inspiration for his artwork once he learned to use the medium.

“I started making these because I grew up in a racist home,” he said. “My dad planted this seed of hate at a very young age. It took me a long time to get over it.”

In his late 20s he began working through the learned behaviors and attitudes by volunteering with groups like the Muscular Dystrophy Association and Special Olympics.

After a stint in the Air Force, Bondy said, he gained an even greater understanding of the importance of diversity and tolerance through a pair of classes he took with Debora Pontillo.

“My eyes were opened to people who had it harder than I did and had different troubles,” he said. “She’s the inspiration for these pieces.”

His Windows of Diversity line of stained glass art depicts images that are split in half, often figures, with each half representing different elements, races, or perspectives.

“That split shows that everyone is connected in different ways and that people need to come together to overcome diversity,” Bondy said. “The breast cancer piece has eight figures, so, it’s got 16 halves. It’s showing that people of all different backgrounds and races need to come together to fight breast cancer.”

What drew him to create this particular piece, he said, was encountering more and more women who have had breast cancer which led him to start doing research into the subject.

“I went online and was reading,” he said. “It’s amazing to me that white women have a higher rate of breast cancer, but black women … have a higher mortality rate. That’s when I realized it would fit nicely into my diversity line because all women are affected by it and nobody’s safe.”

Bondy hopes people will be inspired by his artwork to think about those who are less advantaged and reach out to them.

“I really want to raise as much money as I can for Susan G. Komen,” he said. “It’s going to a good cause.”

As of Oct. 8, Bondy’s auction on eBay had drawn bidding to $500, with the auction set to end after the Reporter’s press deadline.

It can be found at this site.