My, How Times Have Changed

I know I haven't put anything down in awhile, but it seems to me that my stained glass business is in a much different place than when I first started this blog. Back then I was talking about being 'covered up' and now it's as if someone threw a switch about a year ago and turned off my business. I've had a few small jobs that make me keep the doors open but really, It's never been this dry in over 20 years.

I'm sure it's because Stained Glass is so dependent on the housing market and of course that's collapsed completely. And also when it's time to cut back on expenses well, who really needs the stuff I make anyway.

And that has always been the source of a certain amount of ambivalence on my part. As a carpenter I always knew that I was providing a necessary service. It's a noble profession, hell, Jesus was a carpenter. But no one in the bible, or anywhere else in literature as far as I can tell, was a Stained Glass artisan.

Of course I'm an artist, but I've never had that consuming artistic fire, that "I would die for my art!" attitude. It's always been something I enjoyed doing and was good at but I never felt I had anything to "say" in art.

And Stained Glass artisans, with a few - very few actually - notable exceptions, are decorative artists at best. We decorate homes. We are often charged with reproducing a beloved scene, or a quilt pattern, or perhaps a family pet. We are constantly being constrained to match the carpet or the sofa or the bedspread for God's sake. The first time I was given free rein to design a transom to suit the home owner's personality, I was so intoxicated with the prospect that I was frozen into immobility for a time. OK, I know this only happens to us in the lower ranks; Narcissus Quagliata probably never gets the "Oh and I love peach, could you put some peach in it?" rap.

But really this feeling that what I was producing was essentially landfill was at it's peak during art festival season. Now, we never did a lot of art shows 4 or maybe 5 a year at the most. But the stuff we had to crank out just depressed the hell out of me. In order to hit those price points below $30 we had to produce simple designs with few pieces that could be cranked out like an assembly line. I was always trying to reduce the number of cuts, usually degrading the design in order to keep pieces affordable. We never really got into the little suction cup sun catchers but still...

Well now our situation has changed dramatically; we're much more financially secure and no longer do the art show circuit - thank God - and I'm looking to find a way to only do jobs that interest me. (not sure exactly how to go about that, can I just sniff and tell a client "So sorry, old chum, but this project bores me?") We have a few pieces in the Kentucky Artisan's Center in Berea and when - and if - the bug to produce items on spec hits I'll look to galleries to sell my work.

Stained Glass In The Bath?

Does it sound silly, putting a gorgeous Stained Glass window in the bathroom where so few people will be able to see it? It's certainly not the first room that comes to mind when you're thinking about a decorative window is it? But homes are getting bigger, and bigger homes have bigger windows and a window in the bath presents a privacy issue. You want the natural light but you don't want people being able to see in.

There are several window treatments that can solve the problem but many people are finding the most attractive one is Stained Glass. You can see some of the windows we have installed at: http//www.homestudioartglass.com/res and scroll down to Stained Glass in the Bath.

Custom Stained Glass II

Odering a window

Generally, when asked to do a custom piece, I like to visit the site where the window will be installed. In this way I can get a feel for the style of the home and see how the client's tastes run. Occasionally, I'll pick up a design idea from a piece of the architecture or some of the furnishings.

I'll also see how much light will be coming through and whether it is direct or indirect sunlight. Many people prefer cathedral glass (see the following paragraph) because it lets in more light and doesn't look as "heavy" as opalescent glass. But in direct sunlight, the color of cathedral can look washed out as if it has faded.

Opalescent or Cathedral?

The term "Stained Glass" originally referred to the silver stain fired onto the back of a piece of glass which gave it a color anywhere from deep amber to bright yellow. Now, however, it refers to any decorative colored glass assembled with lead or copper foil as well as to the sheets of colored glass themselves.

There are 2 basic kinds of colored sheet (stained) glass; Cathedral and Opalescent. Cathedral glass is glass that you can see through. The amount of the diffusion of the light can vary from completely obscure - where you can only perceive light and shadow, to glass that looks like clear glass with color. And while a lot of cathedral glass will appear to have no particular color without light coming through it, like when viewed from outside during the day, opalescent glass will show a color with or without transmitted light.

All of these factors must be taken into consderation when planning a Stained Glass window.

see also: http://www.homestudioartglass.com/your_window.htm

Custom Stained Glass I

It would be so nice to deal with clients on a regular basis for whom money is no oblect, to have a customer who says "just build me a gorgeous window". But usually, one of the first things a customer wants to know is "how much will it cost?". Often this question is asked before the design has been chosen.

There are so many factors that affect the price that it's impossible to say exactly what a window will cost until the design has been finalized and all the materials chosen. This is because;

• The cost of glass varies wildly. For example; the cost of a sheet of hand blown flashed glass can be 10 times that of a machine rolled sheet.
• Doing a window in lead is more difficult than copper foil and takes longer.
• Special order items like custom beveling, faceted jewels or special came will be an extra cost.

But the biggest single factor is the number of pieces. Obviously the more pieces the more work. Our final pricing formula combines the number of pieces plus the square footage.

Still the client needs to have an idea of the price to know if he/she can afford it. And we need to know before we spend a lot of time designing a window that the customer will be able to afford it.

So we've come up with a ballpark figure of $75/ sq. ft. Admittedly, this is on the low side and would represent a fairly simple piece. We want to do every thing we can to get a window into a clients home. We've looked around and feel this is as low a price as you're going to find in the industry.

We put a cost calculator on our website at http://www.homestudioartglass.com/your_window.htm

You just plug in your window's measurements and the java script will calculate an estimated price.

j

Designing with Bevels III

So I find a picture of a rural scene since this home is out in the country (actually, if I'd been smart, I would have taken a picture through the window and the homeowner could have a very realistic idea of what the window would look like, if I'd been smart) and I make it a layer. I've made my drawing another layer on top of it.

I'll start with the border. Since the upper facet reflects what's below, I'll place the target of the Clone Tool on a section of the scene below the bevel (A above). Then I'll place cursor where the upper facet would be (B above) and click and drag to the right. The target will move in a corresponnding manner. This effectively "paint's" what the target is moving over into the area covered by the cursor.
You can hold the shift button down while dragging to get a straight horizontal, verrtical or 45 degree angle line. Another way; you can click and then hold the shift button down. Still holding the shift button move the cursor to the other end of where you want to "paint" and then click. The image gets wiped in nice and straight. This is useful where you want a straight line but it's on an angle.

Well, like I said, I'm using a poor man's version of Photoshop but I'd bet it has a similar feature.

j

Designing with Bevels II

The drawing above illustrates what I was saying; the upper facet bends the light coming from below, while the lower facet bends the light coming from above. Almost as if they were angled mirrors. The program I use, Adobe PhotoDeluxe® is a poor man's Photoshop. It has something they call a "clone" tool. You place the target on a part of the picture you want to copy. Then you put your cursor on the spot where you want the copied image, click and drag and it will "paint" whatever the target is moving over into the area you're covering with your cursor.

More Later
j

Designing with bevels

I've always had a problem when designing beveled glass, how to show the client what it's going to look like.

I would draw it up and use colored pencils to try to give some idea but my artwork never quite captured the beauty of the glass and I always wound up basically asking the client to use his imagination. And it's hard to ask someone to hand you what is sometimes a fairly large sum based on a image in their imagination.

Well, I don't know what other software might get the job done more easily but I use a program called Photo Deluxe along with Photoshop Ltd. That's how I made the image here.

When a piece of beveled glass is installed with the beveled side towards you, the flat surface will, of course be just like any other piece of clear glass, i.e. you'll see what directly in front of you. The upper surface will reflect what below it and the lower surface will reflect what is above it. Likewise the vertical surfaces will reflect accordingly.

More later.

j