American Traditional Glass

Giving the gift art is something special.  When my husband and I got married we asked our guests to make us something instead of purchasing gifts. These are some of our most treasured positions to this day - we look at each piece and think of our friend who made it (or comissioned it...) and think of our day and we’re transported. 

This piece, American Traditional, was comissioned for my client to give his brother on his wedding day.  Drawing on classic American Traditional tattooing motifs of roses, swallows, horseshoes, and sacred hearts and utilizing traditional bold colors with lots of black - this is one of my favorite pieces to date. Okay, I know blue isn’t technically keeping to the rules, but there just had to be blue!! 

The American Traditional Glass is made of 170 lovingly hand crafted individual pieces and measures approximately 16 inches square.  A range of glass was used including opaque, semi-transparent, string glass, and architectural glass.  

Follow the evolution of this glass: Original sketches; coded template; “dirty” glass that’s been cut and ground; cleaned glass; copper foil applied; soldered; chemicals applied to blacken the solder; framed and hung.

All Fall Down

Sometimes bad things happen to good glass. Looking at a glass panel or object it's easy to forget that the well executed idea or solid looking lamp is actually a vulnerable, fragile thing.  Glass repairs are a nerve wracking, pains taking affair but they can be accomplished with a steady hand and stalwart heart.  Here are two examples of repairs that I've recently done. 

In the American Traditional panel, a corner piece cracked while on the framing table.  I had to carefully remove it using a hot soldering iron while quietly begging it not to shatter. I used the broken piece to cut a pattern for a new own and re-foiled and soldered it back into place…good as new!

In the lantern, a pane of glass shattered due to it's being very thin and exposed to the elements. I replaced clear framing glass with some vintage looking seed glass that better matched the feel of the hand-made exterior lantern.

Collapse

Collapse. Living in a semi-rural area I think about colony collapse a lot when I see Spring waking up all the sleepy blooms.  In Collapse we find the Queen Bee desperate to escape the toxicity of her rapidly declining domain. The queen is a separate element from her hive and is soldered onto it rather than being incorporated into it. The panel measures approximately 12.5"x16" and is custom framed in pine with a deep cherry stain.

This piece is a little different from many stained glass panels because it is mainly comprised of opaque and semi-opaque glass with some small windows of transparent glass to make it glow. 

Mary Mary Quite Contrary...

How does your garden grow? Oh it's so cold out it's not growing at all! But take heart, these VERY limited edition stained glass vegetables can sparkle in your windows all year round. Each one is 6 x 8 inches and is made of approximately 40 individual pieces. Framed very simply in lead came with attached hooks. Beet, Carrot, Garlic, Scallions, Radish, and Sweet Peas are all based on turn of the century botanical drawings. $60 each. Stained glass is notoriously hard to photograph but each piece is alive with texture and color.  These were a run of one each but if you're interested in one for yourself or you are only into say asparagus or squash, contact me and we can work on that.     

Rise!

RISE! Roosters follow their circadian rhythms and crow before sunrise to make their intentions known to other roosters every day.  RISE! reminds us to do the same for ourselves. Set your intentions and then sing them out everyday.  "Rise”  is made of 113 individual pieces and measures approximately 13 x 19 inches unframed.   A range of glass was used including opaque, semi-transparent, striated, transparent, and string glass.