Fused Glass Wall Sconces for the Artisan in Decatur Georgia

Working with Cooper Carry Architects in 2005 I started work on The Artisan. George and I designed custom Craftsman Style fixtures for every floor and for the hallway outside the entrance to each condo. My idea was to have each on different, as if you were on a walk, passing by various glimpses of the earth. I worked from the Cube book of pictures of the earth. We installed 70 sconces, all different. The interior designer and the owner were very involved and came to our studio during the production several times. We finished the installation in November 2006, and now are starting the Artisan II, which is why it is coming up on the blog today.

Here is a studio shot of the door panel in progress. The glass is positioned horizontally on my work table, but will be installed so the grapes will hang normally, even artistically if you are being kind. You can see the difference in the shading of the clusters from one end to the other that is created by adding shading which is controlled by the textural changes of the surface of the glass. This panel is 18'' by 65'' , but this is only a partial image.

Wine cabinet engraved glass grape vine

This is part one of a 3 piece set for a wine refrigerator/ wine cabinet. It was engraved with a diamond burred bit using a flexible shaft rotary tool. I am working with Franya Waide, Interior Designer, on a private residence. After the design was accepted, I presented several concept drawings and the measurements were made on site and the full size cartoon drawn. We then transferred the drawing to the 3/8'' glass which was covered with a 3M sandblast mask. We cut it out with an knife and sandblasted it to break the surface of the glass in the design. This is a real time saver. We use a fine grit aluminum oxide in our sandblast room. Then we remove the mask and I begin the finishing. I worked on this panel for at least ten hours with the engraving tool. It will be installed over the existing glass of the refrigerated wine cabinet. This is so it isn't going to have a negative effect on the cabinet temperature control. This piece is 22'' by 30''. This photo was taken in front of a black cloth before the set is complete. The top panel of the Grape vine is 22'' by 33'' on 3/8'' clear glass. It is engraved using the same methods.

Engraved Mirror

I did this project by engraving on mirror with a flexible shaft tool with diamond bits. The commission was for 2 mirrors and this was the smaller of the two. (Total Commission was $8,7oo). The Victorian rose and fern motif was used on both. The sconce was installed over a drilled hole in the mirror. This work is very slow going and the sound of grinding on large piece of glass needs to be considered before taking on this type of work. No one wanted to be around while this was going on and all sorts of protection had to be worn. To design for carving , I work with scratch board or pastels on dark paper. I also looked at great work online being done by Moser in CZ. I would love to go there and work and live, but not enough to do it really. Besides I have too many fun things to work on here.

Stained Glass from Fused Glass

This is a window that I designed and built for a beautiful home in Tennessee. It is eight feet by three feet and installed with a protective insulated unit. This piece took many hours to complete using glass frit and and colored glass pieces cut to pattern, then fired and layered with more frit and fired again. It is a wonderful process allowing more freedom of detail than with the traditional stained glass methods I have been using for the past 30+ years. This type of work is for available for any budget. This piece could be done again, in a different size with most any flower, or flowers for between $200-500 per square foot. Each flower is individually built. It is not a stencil type design as you commonly see in production marketed work.

This is one of my stained glass panels done in the traditional painted, stained and fired style. This is the most ancient type of work. This panel is two feet by four feet. I painted this a few years ago. This one is $1,200.00.

Thank you for looking.
I'll be putting up some pictures of a carved piece I am working on later.

Art Glass Studio is Back

Once again we return to the internet. We are now updating our photo library, and this will be our webpage for now.