Painting with transparent puzzle pieces

Motivated by a desire to build a Tiffany lamp, I became interested in stained glass. My wife, Kimberly, gave me a unique gift some years back--a collection of stained glass tools and materials--and later enrolled me in a stained glass window making class. The class was at J. Ring Glass Studio where I made a simple window. Living in a house build in 1913, I came to appreciate windows as much as lamps. Our house has several original stained glass windows, from leaded glass cabinet doors to decorative sidelights around the front door. We also have a unique half-round above our dining room buffet.

My first personal project outside of the class was a furniture restoration piece. My parents gave us an antique secretary which had been handed down from other family members. It comes from Mankato where it was said to be owned by the mayor.

The piece had been through a lot over the past century, from a broken bracket and bent open hinges on the desktop, to a shattered cabinet window and many chips in the finish. The shellac finish had succumbed to alligator cracking and a typical orange discoloration. The whole piece needed some TLC.

I can remember years ago the day my own sister kicked in the cabinet window. That was decades ago, so I thought that in addition to giving the piece a new french polish to restore the finish, I could add a cabinet door window in leaded restoration glass. This became my first stained glass project, but it was more than that because I was adding a matching decorative element to a family heirloom. Once complete, I noticed a missing escutcheon, so I recreated one out of a brass plate to match the others. Click the link to the left to see the entire restoration gallery images.

Soon after completing the secretary, I decided to add some privacy to the bathroom upstairs by installing stained glass into the double hung windows. I decided to use the half-round dining room window which is original to the house as the design inspiration. I figured it was fitting, given the fact that these windows share the same northern wall. I attempted to reproduce in new glass a close match to the existing window while transforming the geometry to a rectangular opening. The two sashes make a matched set, and I think it turned out rather well, considering this project is my second and third real windows (I don’t count the practice piece from class). Click the link on the left to the mooja gallery where you can view various stages of the bathroom window through completion.

The bathroom window was a completely different challenge than the secretary because of the straight cuts. The secretary, by comparison, is comprised entirely of curves and unusual shapes, and in retrospect, I can’t believe I chose it as my first project. With all of the interlocking curves and complicated cuts, the bathroom design was much easier to cut, although the varying types of glass kept this project interesting. I hope to do more windows in the house, probably in the kitchen next, but I do want to try making a lamp of some sort. I have my thoughts on replacing the porch light

with a stained glass shade either flush to the ceiling or some kind of hanging inverted design. I’d like to match the simple floral and geometric patterns in the foyer sidelight windows.

I recently started building some lamps! My first project was a shade for the ceiling fan in the office. I took a mold of the original glass shade that came with it. This was a basic etched glass bowl. I then used the plaster mold to build a simple, geometric shade using wavy amber diamonds set against a slightly amber opal background. This, my first lampshade, is comprised of 160 pieces of glass.

My next adventure was my first real stained glass lamp. This lamp was entirely hand built. I started with nothing and bought brass parts such as the tubing, the necks, check rings, fluted tubes, rayon covered wire, ball hinge--and I put them together to build the lamp base. I then applied a patina to achieve the aged green-brown look. Finally, I built a stained glass shade using 168 pieces of Uroboros green ring-mottled opalescent art glass. This was built over a Worden 7" dome form, copper foiled, leaded and patinated to match the base. This lamp is the result of months of parts research, plus several weeks of construction, not to mention several years of

contemplation. The pictures don’t quite do justice to the shade. It has to be seen to be truly appreciated. It looks like a fortune in emeralds!

I then created another shade similar in size using the leftover glass. It turns out that the green glass was roughly half green and half blue. This time, I used the blue areas to make a trumpet bell shape. This simpler design consists of only 24 pieces, but the beautiful blue has quite an impact.

There are many stained glass projects that are described and updated at the Studio Hanson website. Check it out!