Archives: Artists

COMMISSIONING A STAINED GLASS ART WINDOW OR PANEL

THE PROCESS
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Firstly I would arrange and make a site visit to discuss your requirements and to make preliminary measurements. A visit to her studio is also an option where you can see glass samples and discuss thoughts and ideas.

I use email to correspond and discuss design requirements if you are not local, which also works well. Contact by phone to help discuss ideas is also part of the process. You will not be charged for the initial visit or design consultation.

A ballpark quote may be given at this time however prices can vary according to the amount of work involved.

After the initial meeting, I will gather ideas together from different resources to start the design process. A quote will then be submitted at this time.

Once I have a few ideas to work with these will then be worked on to present to you in the form of small scale colour sketches. At this point, 30% of the total amount quoted will be required. Another site visit will be needed to check the measurements of where the stained glass panel is to be situated.

From the approved sketch a full-size drawing, known as a cartoon, will be made and amended if necessary at this point. Choosing the glass for the panel now takes place and before the glass cutting starts an agreement of which glass to be used is made.

This can be done by you visiting the studio or visiting you with glass samples or if you are at some distance they can be sent by post.

The glass cutting then begins, any glass painting is done and then fired in a kiln. Now the panel is ready to be leaded and then cemented. Please allow 3-6 months, depending on the complexity of this process to be completed.

Installation can be arranged if you are not fitting them yourselves, payment will need to organsied be between you and the fitter.

My work is informed by a daily connection with the cyclical rhythms of the natural world. From my workspace in rural SE Kent I observe and record the patterns of growth and decay that nature reveals in a continual loop. I am interested in what is hidden inside eg: pods, eggs, seeds, and how they reveal something completely different as they burst into life.

I am mainly an oil painter, but have fallen in love with glass. It’s all about the color:)
I recently (2022) completed a commissioned public artwork for Rush University Medical Center. It is a 4′ x 5′ fused and painted stained glass window installed in a main hallway window. Chicago, Illinois. USA
In 2020 I completed a commissioned 44′ tall glass and metal sculpture for Glenview Community Ice Center, Glenview, Illinois. USA
In 2018 I completed a commissioned 15′ tall metal and cast glass sculpture for Synnestvedt Arboretum in Glenview Illinois. USA

I have been creating glass art for my garden, making a hanging made from feathers inserted into a bicycle wheel, a bed of glass dahlias on iron stems and lately experimenting with multimedia mosaics.

I have recently been trying slumping and also freeze and fuse.

I create dynamic glass, experiments, fuse it with other substances, analyses and examines it – rationally, but with empathy. I work with it as if I were conducting an interview, but without the niceties and courteous phrases. That is how the interactive artworks come into being, works which stimulate the emotions and incite interest without pandering to the audience. I perceive glass as a material that serves artists. Nothing more, nothing less. It is the medium through which I tell my stories.

Each year I try to make some different objects than I have made before. I make an experiments to combine glass with chemistry – sodium acetate or blue vitriol, with materials as fiber glass, basalt or basalt fibers, grinding wheels, or I educe my own materials as kind of home made flubbers from glue and borax. Nothing is strange to me I search for different way in this supersaturated world. New materials give me new impulses, ideas, inspirations. In my creations you can find both design pieces and conceptual artworks – original, identifiable, my own.
I resist stagnation, looking for new territories, new approaches and connections in glassmaking.

The Guild of Glass Engravers was founded over 40 years ago based on an idea by two students of glass engraving, Elly Eliades and Elaine Freed who, finding that no formal glass engraving teaching existed, proposed forming a professional body for this art form. They contacted noted engravers and, after preliminary discussions, the first meeting was held in 1975. Laurence Whistler was invited to be the first President and John Hutton the first Vice President.

One of the original honorary members and supporters of the Guild was HM The Queen Mother.

The primary aims of the Guild are to promote the highest standards of creative design and craftsmanship in glass engraving.

The Guild acts as a forum for the teaching and discussion of engraving techniques and new developments from around the world as well as acting as a source of information to the public on all aspects of glass engraving and advises the growing number of individuals and institutions wishing to commission work.

To engrave glass is to embark on an absorbing and rewarding experience of working with light. The mysterious qualities of glass – a liquid metal caught in a moment of time and requiring both fire and water in the making – appear magical. Glass engravers capture, enhance and celebrate these qualities in their work and endeavour to communicate them to a wider audience.