STAINED GLASS : THEN AND NOW

In my first post about stained glass I wrote about how I started working with stained glass, it was more or less by accident. We wanted to have a couple of stained glass windows on either side of our fireplace and like everything else that we do, we decided that we would do it ourselves. I learned how to work in stained glass. My wife and I designed the windows and I make the finished windows. There are pictures of the two windows in my first post about stained glass.

I am not sure how many years I have been working in stained glass but it is more than five. I do not work constantly with glass and there are long periods that I do not do anything. Mostly, I make things out of stained glass for my wife and I, my family and sometimes for friends. Most of my creative time is taken up with wood carving.

Over the last few years I have started working with beach glass or found glass, much as I work with found wood. I am a strong believer in taking everyday materials, found materials, recycled materials and creating art out something that has been considered to be garbage. There is a special kind of satisfaction in doing this. Having said that, I have been working on a piece that is entirely made of found glass over the last three or four years. Again, it has been off and on. There were long periods where I did not touch the piece because I did not know where it was going. The piece grew organically, a few pieces at a time. As I got more and more into the piece I because to develop a vision of what it might look like when it was finished. It was that vision that guided me to finishing the piece.

I finished assembling the piece a few weeks ago but with traveling to Quebec and all the other activities in my life right now it has laid on a shelf waiting for me to give it the finishing touches. finishing the piece mainly involves adding reinforcement to make the piece strong and rigid. Right now it is very fragile and easily come apart if it is not handled carefully. When I have time, probably this coming weekend I will add thick copper wire around the entire perimeter to strengthen the entire piece. As well. I will weave wire in the back of the piece to give it strength across the piece as well.

Here is what the piece looks like at the moment.

Close up of top right hand corner - text

I chose and positioned specific pieces of found glass that contained text in prominent locations so that they would stand out.

Other pieces were included because that had markings that were script like without being intelligible words. They are more like phonemes, or pieces of words or text.

I also like using pieces of glass that are similar to create effects like clouds.

I especially like putting these bottle tops together simply because i liked the way they looked together and the effect that they created.