Glass artist Jim Bowman is leaving Dallas after 40 years. Mark Birnbaum Productions released a video of Bowman  talking about the move he and his wife, Mary Lynn, are making. (You can see Bowman in action in his former studio in the Cedars in our Art&Seek Spotlight profile.)

The couple has decided to move to Burnsville, North Carolina. They’re attracted to the art community around the Penland School of Crafts.  But Bowman has plenty of good things to say about the city he’s leaving behind.

“I feel so at home in Dallas,” he says in the video. “When you live somewhere, probably doesn’t matter where it is, it imprints in your brain.”

Bowman says the move is also to help them downsize. He believes the move will do them some good, but also expresses sadness.

“I’m going to miss very much the community that supported me over the last 40 years. I feel kind of bad about leaving that. We can come back and visit any time we want.”

In his years here Bowman has helped artists by allowing them to set up shop on his land, helping create a glass program at the University of Texas in Arlington and by starting the “decorating the tree” tradition in which Bowman and his crew drip glass over a metal armature in the shape of a Christmas tree.

He ends the video in a hopeful tone: “There is so much new young energy coming here. Something will fill that spot.”