Show Me!

Our lives have been turned upside down by our construction project, and I'm getting very little done in the glass world. I find I miss it terribly. Hopefully by The Yule, I will be able to start a few new projects.

In the meantime, our local historical society is putting together a small show of local artists. I was suprised and humbled when they asked me if I would like to participate. Many of the my best panels have gone to auctions, or gifts to friends and family. But I brought together six to show.

One of them is already displayed in the building. It went to a fundraising auction and the woman who bought it generously donated it back to the museum, The River Life Center.

The Portrait of Francoise is an interpretation of a Picasso drawing. I painted the eye detail on white glass, and used copper wire to define the lips.

Raven Steals the Sun is one of my favorites. I love the Northwest Native Peoples ' ledgund. It has aspects of the universal theme of the Virgin birth, and son/sun bringing light into the world.

Last year I took a photo of Mt Ste Helens from the highway that runs the Columbia River. It's very difficult to make trees look real, but then stained glass is an impressionist media for the most part. I love looking at the broad river, the rock face rising off the beach, and the towering trees above.

Mary, Clothed In The Sun is a little different, and won't appeal to everyone, but I wanted to try to capture the flowing robe. I also wanted to try painting on the glass, which was a limited success, but each panel is a learning experience. Besides the background glass is delicious! She has a crystal crown and Sacred Heart.

And finally, Schooner Moon, which is such a romantic image.

Until I started working with stained glass, I never thought of myself as a creative person. Now I readily try different creative processes, and I am not afraid to fail. What a liberating feeling!

Taj Magarage Glass

As many of you know, Ed and I are in the process of building a new home. We're in Phase I, which is the apartment above the garage, to be followed by Phase II, The House. I don't even want to think about Phase III. Who knows what's next. At the moment, we're working on the Taj Magarage.

What this means to my glasswork is that the cozy little room in our current living quarters will soon be no more. My choices were...1: in the barn; no heat, no air, no insulation, a long walk in the winter weather, or 2: downstairs in the garage; insulated, possibly heat, large doors for air, and a very short commute. After carting all my glass down to the barn, I decided to go with curtain #2.

Last week, I carted my worktable, most of my tools, accumulated Important Stuff, along with way too much Needless Junk into the garage. See that way cool sign up on the wall? That was a birthday present from my friend, Kim. It's perfect!

It's all very neat and tidy for the moment. Give me a week...I can mess it up bigtime.

The stove? Oh that, my friends is a butter yellow Magic Chef 1000, made in the 1920s. It has 6 burners, two ovens, a broiler and a warming drawer. It cooks like Denny's on steroids, and is going into the new Big House. That is a story you can watch at http://www.washnewoldhouse.blogspot.com/ .

While all this moving and packing and building and painting was going on, I got a call from the folks at a local historical society asking if I could donate a piece of glass for this year's auction. It is so hard to say no. Actually, I did say no, then I felt so guilty I called them back.

It's a design I have done before, but one that I knew would look nice and that I could do quickly.

Hip Hip Hooray!

It's been a year since I had my hip roto-rootered, and I'm due for my final post-op appointment in a few weeks. The orthopedic surgeon that did the surgery is a kick. She specializes in women's sports injuries and hips, so I thought....hmmm..well it's a little goofy but why not? OHSU is a teaching hospital and she always comes in with an intern or two, so it's always a circus. Hopefully none of the cut lines will look like fractures.

Home At Last

Ne Obliviscaris is complete and on the road to it's new home. I have been planning this project for several years, and it is hard to describe how I feel about it.

Every day police officers and firefighters go to work knowing that it could be their last. But that isn't what is on the forefront of their minds. They think about the regular stuff..family, bills, friends. Did they remember to feed the dog before they left for work? But the constant hum in the background is the other side... staying safe, getting sued, active shooters, hazmat spills...terrorists.

Emergency services dispatching, which is what I did, is exacting work, with no margin for error. It can eat you alive. It also gives you the opportunity, every day, to change the outcome of a potentially horrible situation. Shots fired, officer down, helicopter crash, childbirth, pursuits, lost kids, found kids. It was a great job and I loved it.

After 20+ years, Ed retires from law enforcement this week. After being shot at, run over, attacked by lunatics and generally having a great time, I will be thankful to finally get him home in one piece. It is only job that I can think of (besides active military and firefighting) that you have to put on body armor every day to go to work. It was a great job and he loved it.

We have been so blessed.

It's Hard To Resist

The sandblasting was a success! It was a totally new thing and I was really afraid I would mess up the whole project, but I am really happy with how it turned out.

So here is how it went: I printed out the script on the computer. For the Lady Liberty motto, I chose a font that I felt was appropriate for the statue. For the badge, I just used a photo of the badge and enlarged it to the proper size. Then I taped the pieces with the words to the back of the glass. This is probably not the best way to do it because the thickness of the glass distorts the print, but I was careful to look directly down through the glass when cutting out the resist.

Resist is a clear plastic made specifically for sandblasting which can be cut with a craft knife. It adheres to the glass and won't get blown away in the blasting process. After burnishing it onto the glass, I used an electric stencil cutter (like a tiny hot needle) and cut out the letters. After peeling off the parts that I didn't want, I cleaned up any rough edges with an exacto knife, and carefully burnished off any burrs. This part was tricky because you don't want to displace any little pieces that are supposed to remain, or the whole thing is ruined and you have to start over.

Then I put resist on the back of the pieces so that any flying blasting medium wouldn't cloud the glass.

I borrowed a small siphon sandblaster from Ruth Doumit, a very talented glass and ceramics artist who advised me on this part of the project. I made a temporary sandblasting cabinet from a large plastic storage bin. I put the glass down at the bottom inside of the bin, covered the edges of the bin with pieces of wood and just reached in and blasted away.

Definitely low tech, and I'm sure there is a lot of snickering and eye-rolling going on someplace, but that's ok. I'll be the first to stand up and say I have no clue what I'm doing. There is some stunning sandblast art going on out there, and this isn't it. This is just fundamental script. When I win the lottery I might get some real sandblasting equipment, but I just needed something simple for this project.

I wish I had a picture of me in my sandblasting outfit cause it was quite the fashion statement. I had a bandanna tied over my hair "Lucy" style. I had safety glasses, dust mask, longsleeved shirt buttoned at the neck and sleeves, and gloves. It wasn't enough. Next time I'll get a sandblasting hood.

The banner is on the Lady Liberty.

The badge number here has been replaced with a tribute to September 11, 2001.

So here it is in rough form. I still have to put zinc u-came around each one. Ed is building a cedar frame for the finished piece. I'll probably spend hours cleaning and polishing the glass before it is mounted.

We'll probably get it all together next weekend. Ed will drive down for his last week at work and take it with him. I've had this project on my mind for several years and it feels good to actually put it together.

It'll Be A Blast!

The largest part of the Lady Liberty for Ne Obliviscaris is soldered and ready for the sandblasted banner on the bottom.

After staring back and forth between pieces of glass, I decided to make the banner piece out of clear glass instead of the blue glass. With the motto etched on I think it will look better against the blue glass in the second panel.

The second panel is cut out and foiled, but since some of the pieces in the body of the panel are to be sandblasted also, I have to wait until they are done before soldering it. The lettering here shows through from the pattern cartoon, but it gives a good version of how it looks, pre-foil. All of that black background... will be gone. I used Spectrum artique for the border and blue gluechip for the badge field.

I took the cut pieces of blue glass, taped copies of the script to the back and then put the resist on the top of the glass. I used an electric stencil cutter (like a hot craft knife) and cut out the letters. Then after removing the unwanted pieces, I used a craft knife to clean up the edges. I had lots of solid advise from other glassers about how to cut these out. Of course, I didn't follow any of that advise, but this seemed to work best for me. We'll see what happens when they get blasted.

I met with a very talented glass artist nearby, Ruth Doumit, who will be very generously helping me with the sandblasting. Hopefully she will have time to help me with that this week.

Never Forget

Ne Obliviscaris is the motto for the Campbell Clan, and is also the title for this piece. A two panel piece, this will be constructed similarly to a plated piece. The two panels will not be leaded together, but rather framed together.



For the front panel, I have modified a Glass Crafters pattern by removing their background, leaving Lady Liberty. Here, the background is clear glass. The statue is white wispy and white wispy/opal, with amber pieces for the flame and lights in the crown. At this point the piece is cut and foiled, awaiting the motto banner at the bottom.































The motto will be sandblasted onto blue glass. I've laid the blue across the unfinished piece to get a feel for the finished look of the first panel.
I still have to cut the script into the resist. I've not done this before, but I think I will put the resist on the glass, then a layer of carbon paper, then a copy of the script. I'll trace the script, remove the carbon paper, and cut out the letters into the resist.