Margaret's birthday present

My daughter, Margaret, is having a birthday in a couple of days. She lives in an old, Victorian-style shotgun house in the Midwest, with 10' ceilings and original wide plank hardwood floors. There are transoms above some of the doorways and a high, narrow window on one wall in the living room. This is where this window will go. The room receives very little light from this window because of the overhanging pine trees in the neighbor's yard; thus, the clear "crackle" background glass. There is a yellow agate slice hanging in the limbs of the tree.

The window is 40.5" long x 16.5" tall and is copper foiled. I ran out of solder today which is exasperating because I was only able to solder the front side of the glass. Backside, with re-bar, will be done when my solder shipment arrives.

Tree of life stained glass panel

I am making a "tree of life" stained glass panel to fit in a long, narrow window that is high up on a wall (10' ceilings) in a Victorian era shot-gun house in Kentucky.  The window has restricted back light because of thick pine tree branches that cover the view.

 This is a close up of the panel. I am using Uroborus bright, grenadine red on clear wispy glass for the fall side of the tree and a bright yellow agate slice with crystals for the sun. The background is Spectrum clear crinkled glass. The texture of the background glass diffuses the light in different directions.

On the summer side of the tree I am using Kokomo dark green and lime green on clear wispy glass for the leaves. The middle of the tree, where the leaves change from green to red, is cut from Kokomo green, cerise, ruby red on clear streaky. The trunk and branches are cut from an opalescent Uroborus glass, and the bottom of the window is cut from Youghiogheny beige, copper, cobalt blue with a dark green stipple. It looks gorgeous with a minimum of light behind it. The window will be copper foiled and encased in 1/2" wide zinc came. To aid in structural support I will add curved, narrow re-bar along the top of the ground line as well as copper re-stripping in strategic areas of the tree. None of the structural support will show.

Baptismal bowl

Baptismal bowl with hand painted doves on clear glass, fired on royal blue dichroic glass underneath. Bubbles formed between the clear painted cap and the dichroic glass, giving the bowl depth and texture. The bowl is 17" in diameter and is 1.75" deep. Given to Rev. Steve Petty.

Fused bowls

15.5" diameter emerald green dichroic glass bowl with clear dichroic frit and red and blue frit.  Depth is 1.75".  Food safe.

Emerald green dichroic bowl showing depth.

Hand painted Celtic tree of life on teal/emerald dichroic glass, capped with clear.  Food safe.  17.5", 1.75" deep.  Here you see the emerald color.

Here you see the teal color!

 9.5" fish dish for a child's room.  Fish are made from different color frit, fused in a hand cut mold, then tack fired onto a fused Bullseye streamer piece backed with clear.   Food safe.

17.5" reptillian pattern dichroic bowl fused with glass beads and capped with clear glass.  Depth is 1.75".  Food safe.

My favorite contemporary piece!  17" squiggle bowl with "voltage" dichroic glass offset in the center.  The "squiggles" are glass rods slumped over forms in the kiln, then tack fused onto the fused voltage on clear base.  Not food safe.

Odd shaped 18.5" x 14" x 1.75" bowl.  Not food safe, more like a sculpture.  You can see the brilliant turquoise reflections in the dichroic glass. This glass is on a clear background, so light reflected through the bowl shines onto the surface below.

 Celtic "Tree of Life" bowl made from 18" round dichroic glass with hand painted clear glass cap.  Fused at 1465 degrees Fahrenheit, then slumped at 1225 degrees Fahrenheit into a 17.5" mold. The dichro is teal green when viewed in one light, and a light cobalt blue when viewed in another.

The bowl is sitting on top of a pair of welding gloves. These are big leather gloves I use to take hot (but not too hot) glass from the kiln.

Not your daughter's home made pot holder

 I call this sculpture "Open Weave." It is on a 10" x 10" flat piece of black glass backed with clear. The "squiggles" were slumped about a week ago.  They stuck to the rods on which they were slumped, and broke off in different lengths. 

Boy was I mad. I broke all but one of the rods trying to get the glass to part company. That is what I get for trusting Boron Nitride mold release spray to last more than one firing. It didn't. The glass I had left from that slump I wove (literally) together and came up with this.

Another bunch of broken stuff put to good use. The 

squiggles are tack fired onto the fused black and clear glass.

A new direction--Contemporary!

This is a 3-stage firing project I started several days ago. The diameter of the 96 COE dichro center is 13" and the clear 96 COE base is 17.5". The dichro is purposely cut so that the center eye is still in the middle of the clear base, with the surrounding dichro closer to the edge of the clear in  one place than in another. I had previously slumped 96 COE colored rods over "squiggle" forms. Some are clear and some are opaque.

The first stage was to fuse the 13" dichro to the 17.5" clear at 1460 df in 5 ramps. After cooling that fuse, I tack fused the squiggles to the dichro and clear glass at 1265 df in 4 ramps. There are now three layers of glass to slump in the bowl form. This was done at 1265 df in 5 ramps. The bowl is 1.75" deep. Creating contemporary art is fun!