Stained Glass Pieces Made in 2018

BAYFIELD ABSTRACT for Nanci

I was given $1000.00 from my bridge friends for my 65^th birthday. $150.00 of the money was used to purchase the rectangular glass creation on the left with an eye to putting it into a window for myself one day. The piece consists of chunks of glass glue onto a very heavy ½ inch thick plate of glass and possibly fired in a kiln. I bought this creation in an quality art store in Bayfield. It caught my eye because it contained so many of my favourite colours.

Bayfield Art Piece

Section shows turquoise and mauve rondels and blobs

Creating the pattern was very challenging because it had to accommodate a rectangle and also because the Bayfield piece had a lot of technical challenges. It was too thick to set into any piece of U metal I could locate or even a wooden frame as the chunks of glass hung over the edge and were uneven in depth. I finally got the idea to set them into a piece of border zinc using silicon like one uses to put plates of glass into a shower. Even so I was very worried that the lower half of the window would not support the weight of the top rectangle.

The leaf pattern caught my eye because it was so modern and abstract looking and I decided to use it as a focal point in the bottom part of the window and then work in globs and rondels while matching the colours in the Bayfield rectangle. The cascade of globs flowing from corner to corner gives ads a certainly fluidity to the piece. The border of 1 inch bevels brings rainbows into the room. The iridescent clear textured glass in the background also adds to the rainbow effect.

As a final touch and since this is a piece I designed and made for myself, I added in a butterfly suncatcher that I had made for my mother years ago. My abstract tells a story and it also encompasses my beautiful mother in a piece that will have longevity and perhaps give pleasure for years to come. The piece hangs in my turquoise sun room and is actually quite feminine and quite spectacular.

ELORA ABSTRACT for Deb Otten Banks

I couldn’t resist sneaking a photo of the attractive abstract stained glass piece on the left in the Styll fine craft gallery in Elora. I was not able to locate the pattern online so used my rapid resizer application to white out the colours and create a black and white pattern. It is very difficult to choose colours for an abstract piece. I started with the multi-coloured spirit glass in the centre. These colours are then picked up in swirls of pastel that match. A variety of different textures, along with a large turquoise faceted jewel and 1 inch bevels arpim the border make for a very elegant creation.

The piece was a house warming gift for my high school friend Deb Banks Otten in Toronto as they did a very large and modern renovation to their house this year.

Piece from Style

My Creation

LOVE CLEFS for Jillian an Mike

My niece Jillian Pammett got married to Mike Nederoscik in June of 2018. Since they both love music and Jillian sings and plays the guitar I decided to make something with a music theme for their wedding gift. I was considering the vibrant treble clef pattern below but was hesitating as it was really complex and more elaborate that I wanted to make since this was to be a no gift wedding.

Then I discovered the amazing logo below on our church bulletin one Sunday and the idea sprang to life. It was perfect, both a treble and a base clef positioned in the shape of a heart. So I blended the two patterns together and used colours that were part of the wedding theme.

I had a rare yellow faceted jewel and a green one so these became the clef colours. I decided to use a gold rondel with some blue coated glass around it so I was able to carve their names and wedding date into this outside circle. I drew in the checkered background but used textured clears so it would not detract from the heart clefs or the rondel focal point.

GUSTAV KLIMT'S THE KISS for Jockie Loomer-Kruger

 I decided to have a going away tea party for my friend Jockie who was moving to Milton to be close to her family now that she is 80 and has a few health issues. Jockie is a creative and talented lady with many collections so I struggled trying to come up with a theme for a stained glass going away present. I love Klimts famous painting “the Kiss” and had always wanted to try to do that in glass

Then I thought, how perfect, Jockie is a painter too and this could be a memory to honour her husband’s passing as she has just been through a year of grieving. Thus painting became the theme of the party which started out with an ice breaker game in which I pinned pictures of famous paintings and also their painters on people’s backs and they had to find each other by asking questions. It was a big hit. I also included one of Jockie’s paintings in the game.

The original painting is very complex and hard to translate into stained glass. I developed the pattern from a black and white scan of the original painting using my rapid resizer application to get basic shapes then drew in the rest of the design by hand.

It was very tricky to match the colours in the painting but a variety of beige and gold with various textures did the job. You will notice that the lovers have different skin tones. I used glass vase globs to suggest the flowers in the dress and glued glass leaves in the black hair and blue chunks of glass in the brown hair to suggest flowers. The stunning finished product does seem to capture a private and very intimate moment in time as intended by the original artist and Jockie was just thrilled to receive the gift. She said that her husband complained that he never got enough kisses and neither did she so the gift perfect.

JOHN KLEE'S HEAD OF MAN GOING SENILE for Steven Carter

 My cousin Steven Carter was born with  hole in his heart and had open heart surgery when he was a child and was not expected to live to be a teenager. He lived a very healthy vegetarian life as an adult and outlived the statistics by many years. When he moved back to Ontario from Vancouver in the early 1990's our family fell under his spell and got to know and love him very much. In the fall of 2016 while I was undergoing treatment for breast cancer he was unexpectedly received a heart transplant. The following summer Steven had a lovely party in his back yard to thank his family and friends for helping him at this most difficult time. Below is a photo page that he handed out that day. 

 It got me to thinking that I must make him a stained glass heart one day. I also remembered that at one time he had mentioned that he liked John Klee's Head of Man Going Senile painting which he pointed out below when he was going through one of my stained glass pattern books. I got the idea of trying to incorporate a heart into this design. The abstract heart in the handout above is a woodcut design that was made by his friend Naoko Matsubara who is a printmaker.  
 

Original John Klee 'Head of Man Going Senile' Painting. It is also a Harlequin called Senecio.

Stained glass interpretation of the painting.

I searched online and found a  similar fire flower heart design by Matsubara and was able to integrate it into the design. The man's nose and cheek area was redrawn to match the original
painting. His shoulders were extended so the heart could be incorporated just off to the left side. side. Below is the integrated pattern I came up with. I decided to put it into a circle so it would be
easier to frame and hang.

Naoko Matsubara Fire Flower woodcut painting.

It was quite challenging to choose the colours for the piece. I originally thought it would be done in mostly see through glass like the one in the pattern book but when I took a closer look at the original painting I noticed some interesting colours and decided to match them as closely as I could because the colour was so important to Klee.

I started with the eyes and only had some very light rust coloured faceted jewels. I put an orange circle behind these jewels to get the stunning colour in the original painting. Then I found some unique bullseye pink glass that would work for the cheeks and the yellow parts of the head and so the work evolved.

  

I found an interesting faceted jewel that I bought somewhere years ago and it just happened to have the yellow and pinks in the centre of it so this seemed perfect for the centre of the heart. I used some of the cheek glass in the heart as well. I tried to emulate the designs in the heart woodcut by using fractures and streamers glass in the centre and different shades of pink. The turquoise antique glass sliver in the centre of heart seemed to bring it to life.

When the time came to choose the background colours for the glass I used my poetic licence to diverge from the original painting. I decided to pick up the turquoise from the heart to break up heavy feel from all of the rusty beige colours (oh and I happen to hate beige). The gold and amber colours and textures were carefully chosen and the lines were altered so the work was not perfectly balanced. I had to place a special order for the pocketed amber glass at the bottom of the piece.

 This is a note I included with the Christmas present to Steven:

It was great fun making this for you Steven and I hope it pays tribute to all you’ve been through and all that you are. You might be a man going senile, something you never expected to be. Or perhaps it is just the circle of life coming full swing. The return to the child. But in this journey and in my getting to know you, you are a man who has a big heart, a man who showers those you meet with love and warmth. And this is where Caroline fits into your life too…. She is one of the most caring and sensitive people I have ever met. She is in the heart of your heart. May you enjoy each other for many years to come.

Love Nanci

End of Stained Glass Pieces Made in 2018