Small Window
This is an eight by eight inch piece that I wanted to look like a view through a small window. It is actually a birthday present to my wife.
Clearly Black and White
This panel is 18 1/2 by 20 3/4 inches unframed, contains 90 pieces of glass and depicts Aesop's fable of the Eagle and the Crow. For those who don't know the fable; a crow in the meadow with a herd of sheep sees a golden eagle swoop down and take a lamb back to it's nest. The crow thinks this is a great way to feed itself and lands on the back of a ram and entangles it's feet in the ram's wool and can't escape. The crow croaks and croaks to free itself and the farmer hears it's cries. He clips the crow's wings and takes it home as a pet for his children.
The pond in the meadow was an accident. The meadow scene was just a tad too big and as I attempted to trim it the glass broke! Another interesting feature is the plain white and black glass. It was flat and I wanted it to have some texture so I slumped it in the kiln. Pretty cool!
Medieval Morris Silver Stain
Here's the finished "Medieval Morris Silver Stain". It is 12 1/2 by 13 3/4 inches and framed in oak and pine. The glass is clear textured and the painting and matte are black. the yellow was accomplished with an age old procedure called silver stain used in the 14th century. When applied to glass and fired in a kiln at below 1100 degrees F the silver molecules replace the sodium molecules in the glass and turn the glass yellow by adding an impurity. Actually all glass colors are achieved with impurities. I really like the piece because it blends designs and techniques over a period of 6 centuries and it takes some to discern which is which. I especially like the bee, an ancient glass painters mark.
Sean's Knot
This panel was commissioned and will be sent to Ohio. The design concept was a celtic wedding band. The panel is a pictish endless knot woven with another simpler endless knot denoting forever intertwined. The panel is 12" x 30".
Just So Stories
I tried to capture the whimsey of Kipling in this piece. Just So Stories are the greatest! I mean the stories not the glass. This panel was donated to the Ephrata Public Library.
Kipling's Kim
This piece is a departure from my previous work. First it honors an author and second it's center is totally painted. For those of you that might wonder about the right angle inside cut that Rudyard's name settles in, it was done by hand with an ordinary glass cutter and grozing pliers. The size of the pane is 21 x 24 inches plus the red oak frame. The colors in the border represent the cool mountain lakes at the bottom melding into the greens of the hills then into the hot sun yellows of India. The protaganists are depicted in the center and the text on the right is part of the opening line of the book. The "litter" text just appealled. This panel was donated to the Ephrata Public Library.
Thirteenth Century Jesus
This is a replication of a 13th century Jesus. In 300 years there was little change in style. The hair became a little less cartooned and simpler while the facial lines remained the same. I did this using a new technique for me. Instead of painting the matte with a brush and badgering it, then firing and doing it again and again to get the desired effect I used an air brush and kept adding layers as needed. This reduces the number of kiln firings to one. A substantial savings in time and energy. At this rate I should enter the current century sometime in 2025.
Ross Crest
Here's the piece close up that gave so much trouble. The barbers got alot of glass coasters of 3 x 3" glass.
Old Glass
This piece is my version of the allegedly oldest complete stained glass in the world! It was done sometime in the eleventh century and it's original color was green not brown. My halo surround is a beautiful piece of Kokomo granite glass that I obtained years ago and couldn't find anything suitable to use it in. This was it and the glass makes the piece.
