CONCRETE EXPERIENCE
I think my involvement in the combination of glass, visible radiation and colour began as a kid when I discovered the colourful images created inside a kaleidoscope. Even as an grownup, I can non look to defy picking up a kaleidoscope and staring into the spectator as I rotate the tubing to alter the design of the coloured spots of glass. If you walk into my place, it is evident that I like to adorn with glass. I have glass flowers, marbles, rocks, vases, balls, bowls and my favourite, stained glass.
I have stained glass Windowss, birds, flowers, night-lights, candle holders, image frames, and a jewellery box. I like to go to the assorted humanistic disciplines and trade festivals and shows in Tulsa so I can bask the stained glass art created by the local craftsmans. In November 1999, I went to the Stained Glass Guild ’ s one-year sale and purchased my first big piece of stained glass. It was a beautiful blue, xanthous, green and ruddy flowered piece. I had purchased several smaller flowered pieces in 1998 at Tulsa ’ s Humanistic disciplines and Craft Fall Festival at Tulsa State Fairgrounds and I knew it would look beautiful surrounded by the smaller pieces.
I purchased my stained glass Windowss at the Haskell Antique Auction in 2000. They were removed from a edifice in England and I like to believe that they survived the bombardments during World War II and now they hang inside my place. I would non state an exceptionally talented artisan created the Windowss but the form in the glass is alone. The colourss sparkle and convey a certain appeal to my kitchen and breakfast nook, particularly on cold winter yearss.
I late remodeled my kitchen, breakfast nook and formal dining country. I installed new counters, wallpaper, boundary line, graphics and flooring. In my trim clip, I have been working with two friends to do a stained glass still life to hang between the room access to the formal dining country and the kitchen, breakfast nook country. We made the form from the wallpaper boundary line, which depicts a wine bottle, cheese, basket of fruit and some flowers sitting on a counter. The piece has over 200 pieces of cut glass and we are about two-thirds finished. Last Saturday, I wrapped many of the pieces in Cu foil as my friends cut and ground the glass. I can barely wait to acquire the film editing, crunching, wrapper, and soldering completed so I can bask it every twenty-four hours when I eat.
One of my favourite topographic points to eat is at TGI Fridays on 61st Street and Memorial in Tulsa. As you might think, it is non merely the nutrient that makes it particular, it is the ambiance. The walls are covered with old-timers and memorabilia-type points. The tabular arraies have tiffany-style light fixtures and they have stained glass inside Windowss.
Applebee ’ s Restaurant in Broken Arrow has similar tiffany-style visible radiation fixtures and stained glass inside Windowss picturing hot air balloons. Another favourite topographic point to eat is the Atlas Grill located in business district Tulsa in the Atlas Life Building on Boston Avenue. Just outside the eating house, there is hallway to the anteroom of the Mid-Continent Building, which has a beautiful 20-panel stained glass design of Tulsa ’ s skyline. Two hallways in the edifice have stained glass panels in the ceiling made from antique glass imported from Europe. I love to saunter through the edifice on my manner to eat and look up to the graphics. I have a colleague who likes to travel with me because she enjoys the historic exposure of the Tulsa, which are located in the lower degree.
I have another friend who loves the old edifices in Tulsa. In 1994 she talked me into traveling on a walking circuit of downtown Tulsa with her and I enjoyed it exhaustively. There are several old churches in the downtown country and many of them have beautiful stained glass Windowss. The Three Episcopal Church has a “ Heaven and Hell ” window, which was designed after World War II and depicts the holocaust horrors. The window shows the faces of Hitler, Mussolini, and other Nazi leaders. The Holy Family Cathedral seems to hold the most stained glass Windowss.
It has assorted Windowss with scenes of the life of Christ, which includes Christmas, Easter and dinner with the 12 apostles. The Boston Avenue Methodist Church, First Presbyterian Church, First Christian Church, and Church of Christ Scientists all have beautiful stained glass Windowss. I think the churches are widely know for their architecture because they are great illustrations of Art Deco but they stand out to me because of the stained glass art.
One of my favourite books is about person that is widely known for his stained glass art, Louis Comport Tiffany. I purchased Masterworks of Louis Comfort Tiffany in 1996. I keep it on my java tabular array and I ne’er seem to pall of looking at it and reading about his maestro plants of art. Over half of the exposure in the book are in colour so you can bask the beautiful scope of colourss in his art. The book has illustrations of his beautiful glass designs, pictures, mosaics, ceramics, Windowss and lamps. His versatility is astonishing and each creative activity seems to incorporate one or all of the things I love in an art signifier, colour, visible radiation and glass.
OBSERVATIONS AND REFLECTIONS
In stained glass art, the visible radiation is refocused and transmitted through the glass doing an ordinary stuff freshness and play. I enjoy the fact that the beauty of a piece is non faded by sunshine but enhanced by it and will still be beautiful in a hundred old ages. Stained glass can be displayed in a window, or on a tabular array in forepart of a lamp or taper, either manner the piece comes to life as merely stained glass can.
I find it astonishing that a level piece of glass can be soldered together with Cu foil and lead to make a curving lamp shade at the custodies of an creative person. Louis Comfort Tiffany is likely the best know creative person for lamp shades. His lamp shades have stupefying colour and were made in a assortment of forms runing from geometric forms, motives, animate beings and flowered designs. The sunglassess could demo the flowers from the budding phase to the decease of the bloom. He created a Russian lamp, Narcissus pseudonarcissus lamp, prairie manner lamp, clematis lamp, cherry blossom lamp, darning needle lamp, waterlilies lamp and my favourite cobweb tabular array lamp.
The cobweb tabular array lamp was made with leaded Favrile glass, mosaics and bronze. Tiffany patented his celebrated Favrile glass, a liquefied combination of iridescent white glass and clear, antique colored glass. Other creative person had tried to unite the two spectacless but they produced a dull and uninteresting stuff. After much experimentation, Tiffany succeeded in intermixing every bit many as five separate colourss, altering the expression of stained g young girl.
Frank Lloyd Wright was a celebrated designer but he besides designed stained glass art. The bulk of the stained glass Windowss designed by Wright are abstractions from nature. He designed the Windowss for the infinite making views between interior and outside infinite. His stained glass panels are plants of art, heightening the designer ’ s design. The cosmetic Windowss shaded, balanced, contrasted, and augmented the quality of visible radiation. This allowed the window to “ go the beautifier of the building. ”
I think the stained glass pieces of Wright are beautiful but I like the pieces designed by Tiffany more. It seems to me that Tiffany designed his pieces for the sheer beauty of the piece and Wright designed his pieces to fancify the infinite. I enjoy the bright colourss and the broad assortment of designs of the Tiffany pieces. Wright did non utilize as many bright colourss in his pieces and they normally had a geometric design. I have seen many exposures and reproductions of their work but I have ne’er seen an original piece of their work.
CONCEPTS AND GENERALIZATIONS
Stained glass is an art, which is produced in many parts of the universe. The manner in which the creative person produces the piece is virtually the same as it was in mediaeval Europe, design the form, cut and crunch the glass, wrap the glass with foil and solder with lead. The techniques remain the same, but modern engineering, specifically the improved bonding chainss and glass cutters, make the procedure easier and faster.
Glass was known and used about five thousand old ages ago, but it was non used in Windowss until the 3rd century after Christ. Early Windowss were little and the pieces of clear or coloured glass were set in plaster to organize a design. It is said that when they were viewed against the visible radiation from the dark inside, the colourss sparkled like gems. In fact, people thought sapphires and rubies were ground up to do the bright blues and reds.
The aureate age of stained glass coincided with the blossoming of Christian architecture in Europe. In the twelfth and 13th centuries, following the campaigns, Gothic cathedrals dominated European metropoliss. The magnificent stained glass Windowss in these cathedrals were used to learn the Bible since the literacy rate was so low and it was the lone “ books ” the people had.
In these Windowss, colored glass and lead lines told most of the narrative. Detailss such as facial characteristics and the simple suggestions of curtain or cosmetic repetition motives, were painted on the glass pieces with black or brown lead pigments. These were so kiln fired, blending the pigment for good on to the glass. Many of them remain as beautiful today as they were when they were when the churches was built. In France the Chartes Cathedral has exquisite stained glass art incorporating no less than one 1000 three hundred and 50 topics, with over three thousand figures.
The art declined during the Renaissance but at the bend of the century, a renewed involvement in mediaeval art led creative persons back to the Gothic cathedrals and their Windowss. Inspired by the dateless beauty of the original Windowss, American creative persons such as Tiffany began making their ain chef-d’oeuvres in glass. Today there is an increasing scope of possibilities because of the new countries such as sand blasting, blending and laminating.
The most of import facet of stained glass remains the glass itself. Glass is composed chiefly of sand and silicon oxide. It is heated to a temperature of 2,000 grades, until it is the consistence of taffy. The colourss are created by the add-on of metallic oxides because the glass does non hold a pigment in it like oil pigments. Since white visible radiation is a combination of all the colourss of the rainbow, the metals in the glass cause the glass to move as a “ filter ” , to take the full visible radiation spectrum, but the colour you see.
To acquire green, you add press to the sand mixture, doing the full colour spectrum to be absorbed by the glass, but green. To acquire pink colour in glass, you must add pure gold to the mixture and so on. Because there is no pigments in glass, there is nil to melt like oil pigments. The colour of glass will be as superb 700 old ages from now as it is today.
IMPLICATIONS FOR NEW SITUATIONS
One twenty-four hours I would love to go to France to see the Chartes Cathedral which is besides know as the Cathedral of Notre-Dame. I would love to see the keen stained glass art, which contains no less than one 1000 three hundred and 50 topics, with over three thousand figures. I would wish to see the “ Beautiful Window ” , the Rose Window, and “ The Life of Christ Window. ” My girl was in France in the March 1999, and she brought be back some beautiful post-cards. She said the stained glass Windowss were more beautiful than the images on the post-cards could demo.
The stained glass piece that I have been working on with two of my friends has been a fantastic acquisition experience. It has most surely increased my grasp of the art signifier. One twenty-four hours I would wish to plan and finish a piece without any aid. I seem to happen thoughts for pieces in magazines, postings, art prints, books and from other stained glass pieces. I have seen stepping rocks made with a stained glass design on one side. I think they would do great gifts for friends and I would wish to give it a attempt. I have noticed an accent placed on outdoor suites in the decorating magazines late and I think they would do a lovely add-on to a patio country.
My involvement in stained glass art has increased my grasp of blown glass. I peculiarly like the glass vases that have an opalescence visual aspect, which sparkles on the surface of the vase. I besides like the flower-form vases and vases that have togss of coloured glass added to the design procedure to make abstract designs drifting on the surface. I have a vase and a bowl, which are made with the coloured togss of glass running through the design. They are two of my favourite glass pieces. I have seen some beautiful manus blown glass bowls at the Mayfest art show located in downtown Tulsa each May. The craftsmans seem to love their work and bask speaking about the design procedure and some of their errors.
I have seen plans on the telecasting that has followed an creative person through the originative procedure. They seem to work in less than ideal conditions to make their art. I have noticed that they have learners that work with them. As the creative person gets older, he or she designs the piece and supervises the learner as they work on the piece. I would love to tour an creative person ’ s workshop and watch them as they create a particular piece merely for me.
