Stained Glass
Calla Lily
My first major Tiffany-style copper foil stained glass project began in 2018 at a Dennis Heter workshop at the Eureka Springs School of the Arts. I had designed a tall office cabinet for Sue with glass door panels in mind. She chose calla lilies as the flower theme. I knew the exact door panel measurements and had a pattern prepared. I completed the workshop with both panels cut, ground, fit and pinned to a board with soldering to be finished at my studio. A black patina was applied to the solder to make it "pop." The combination of cathedral and opaque glass makes it look good even without direct light. (6" x 16")
Sail Away
I set up my glass making workspace in the garage after the move to Lake Stevens, WA. It had been a year since breaking any glass, so a suncatcher seemed like a good smaller project to ease back into it.
I signed up for a stained glass class at the Schack Art Center in Everett, WA. More instruction is always a good idea. I built another night light to warm up first. Then it was on to the suncatcher. The design I created was a little more complicated than I thought. After a restart and a few adjustments to the plan I cast out to sea.
The choppy sea and small boat parts were a challenge, but I learned some new skills on managing that and improved my cutting and grinding. I decided to wrap the edge with "U" lead came and had some trouble getting it bent and fit to a smooth curve. I sure do like the black patina look and the glass looks great in the kitchen window.
Celtic Knot
This practice piece was from a kit, glass already cut to fit the pattern. Once I carefully wrapped all the edges with copper foil and laid them on the pattern, behold they did not fit very well. First lesson learned with kits, don't trust the materials! After stripping off the foil and regrinding multiple edges so they would fit tightly, I began again.
At that point I decided to add some colored pieces to fit in the original empty spaces, which improved the look of it but was more work and tedious small foiling.
The three outside points of contact did not lineup real well which made soldering the outer edge a challenge. I left the solder its natural silver appearance instead of adding a patina. (6" x 6")
Diamond Lead
This was my first attempt at a leaded glass piece. I had some narrow "H-channel" and "U-channel" came plus a box full of scrap stained glass leftover from Ross Ashley's shop. I built a diamond shaped window above the stairway in the cordwood wall in Arkwood Cottage back in the 1980's. So why not put those two together and hang a pendant there.
It was a challenge working with the narrow profile lead came, and I found myself re-cutting several pieces to fit the closer tolerance of the lead. There was also a learning curve on getting the soldiering iron temperature just right to solder the joints without melting the came.
It looked great reflecting light in the north facing-window in Arkwood (photo upper left above), but it really sparks in a south one in the dining room of our home in Lake Stevens, Washington (photo left). (8" x 8")
Origin Story
My interest in stained glass likely began the first time I stepped into the sanctuary of the 19th century United Methodist Church on the campus of Cornell College, my grandparents church in Mt. Vernon, Iowa. The spendor and glory of light passing through colored glass combined with the pipe organ and grandpa Watson's deep bass voice was a lightning bolt to my young midwestern brain. A mere 55 years later, I was on the path.
The fall of 2018 presented itself with a break from projects and a shift into shop improvement. Old areas were revisited and revitalized, a bit more Feng in the Shui as it were. The changing of the seasons from warm to cool stirs up the need for nesting. What I needed to make this type of glass work real for me was a space, tools, and time to practice. Within a few months of a summer course at ESSA, I had converted the Arkwood workshop finishing room into a small glass studio.
There was no running water out there, so I built a portable rolling sink with a pump and water jugs to facilitate glass and hand washing. Next was an appropriate table for a glass breaking and grinding station, an assembly/soldering table, and glass storage. I had installed ventilation when the shop was built, so check that off the list. A new space for storing, breaking, grinding, and connecting glass means only one thing: take it out for a test drive on a few Christmas presents.
The night light on the left was my first stained glass project, crafted at Dennis Heter's ESSA glass workshop in the summer of 2018. It was my introduction to Tiffany-style copper foil and soldered glass work. I was hooked deeper than a walleye on a Canadian lake.
I started small by designing two simple night lights (middle and right above), and used some scrap glass that I was gifted from another glass crafter from up the Kings River, Ross Ashley, who had passed away. Turns out his son was a classmate of my daughter Jody's from K-12, a former student of mine...small world. Thank You Ross! The learning curve is steep, but I'm on my way. These two lights were Christmas gifts for daughter Amber and granddaughter Josephine.
