Vitreosity

American Glass Guild Conference 2010 1

No time to go in depth, but I'm in the midst of the 2010 American Glass Guild Conference, in Detroit, Michigan.

From the workshop on Thursday

and one tiny glimpse of the first day of the conference - a lovely little detail with the signature from a Connick window in St. Paul's Cathedral.

AGG 2010 Conference

The mad dash is on to get ready for the American Glass Guild Conference happening this week in Detroit. Michigan. I've got the last of the packing done now and then I'm off tomorrow early am.... then teaching a workshop, and moderating a panel, and preparing another newsletter for August, and maybe even doing some relaxing and trying to enjoy the company of stained glass colleagues.

Last minute info can be seen at the 2010 AGG Conference website.

You could also download the 2010 American Glass Guild Conference Program, as a sneak peek. Note that it will open up a 6.6mb pdf file in a new window.

Photo Emulsion and ThermoFax Machine Videos

As a preview for my workshop at the American Glass Guild Conference in Detroit in 2 weeks, I've gathered these YouTube videos that demonstrate various methods for photo transfer screen-printing. Though all of these are for screenprinting on fabric, the procedures for making the actual screens are the same if you are printing on glass.

The method that I will be using is 'thermal screenprinting'. You can read about that on my blog post from 2008 called Tools of the Trade 2 - Screenprinting, and here is the brief video I did for that blog post.

5 more videos below the fold...

Cavalieri & Crumb - First Look

First glimpses of a very interesting project - Cavalieri & Crumb - as seen in The Brooklyn Paper

via creative commons - by Joseph Cavalieri, cavaglass.com

I've long thought that collaborations between 'stained glass artists' and 'comics artists' would yield some very unique and forward thinking results, so it's good to see some trying out the idea.

Bendheim Art Glass

Bendheim Glass has a new website for Bendheim Art Glass, which is basically their stained glass or, perhaps more accurately, their artsy architectural glass division.

Check out their fancy new "The Art of Making Glass" brochure (48 page pdf file, 3.9mb).
Very nicely done.

Coldworking for the Glass Artist

This is part 1 of a talk on Coldworking Glass by Robert Stephens of His Glassworks, out of Asheville NC. The audio can be a little jumpy in the transitions from slides to filmed lecture, but in general the talk is very clear and well done, as well as extremely informative. I've only seen up to part 3 (of 8), but I know this will be worth the time to see the whole thing. Certainly anyone who does beveling or engraving will definitely gain from it.

You can see the other parts at the His Glassworks YouTube channel.

oh, by the way, one reason that I find this interesting is that a portion of this talk deals with flex shaft engraving, which I've been doing a lot of recently. Engraving and fire-polishing though.

A work in progress, after engraving and fire-polishing, but before painting -

Sándor Nagy (1869-1950) - stained glass

From the blogger A Polar Bear's Tale, the stained glass of Sándor Nagy, Hungarian artist (1869-1950). I managed to find a brief bio, plus small galleries on his stained glass, graphic work, andpaintings.

The so-called Kisfaludy glass window, 1907
Local History Collection, Gödöllő

Add his name to the group of eclectic artists all of whom were born between 1867 and 1869 and who had highly varied careers and who all made some kind of mark on the art of stained glass.

Frank Lloyd Wright, born June 8, 1867
Johan Thorn Prikker, born June 5, 1868
Charles Rennie Mackintosh, June 7, 1868
Stanisław Wyspiański, born January 15, 1869
Henri Matisse, born 31 December 1869
Sándor Nagy, born 1869

Inspirational Journey

More on Jon Kuhn's collaboration with Salem Stained Glass, and especially about Jon's upcoming presentation of one of his Sacred Cross series to the Pope.

Verriere de Saint Just video

I found this video about Saint-Just glass, and posted it on YouTube to help with their promo. Saint-Just glass is some of the very best handblown sheet glass around, especially the flashed glass.

A Saint-Just label.

Some of their very lovely red on rose flashed glass.

I used the red on rose in the multi-layer panel, Drawn Face

Sigmar Polke 1941-2010

Apprenticed in stained glass early in his career, and returning to stained glass late in his life, the artist Sigmar Polke has died at the age of 69.

click to see larger image in new window

photo from a press kit released by the Grossmünster

Luna Parc on Rare Visions

A video of Ricky Boscarino's Luna Parc, from the Kansas City based series Rare Visions and Roadside Revelations. Rare Visions is the series that first turned me on to the Bottle Wall/Bottle House phenomenon.

There are glimpses of stained glass and a bottle wall structure in the making in this video.

Stained Glass at Canterbury Cathedral

LearnHistory's YouTube channel showing a short part of a longer documentary on "Britain's Middle Ages". Again, short and sweet. If nothing else, the detail images are very nice for a TV doc.

UNESCO video on Chartres Cathedral

Video on Chartres Cathedral by UNESCO. Short and sweet. There are many more tiny snippets of important European historical sites documented on the website.

The Art of Craftsmanship Revisited: New York

In the latest issue of the American Glass Guild newsletter, I created a page devoted to the involvement by stained glass artist Nancy Nicholson in something called "The Art of Craftsmanship Revisited: New York". There were only a few details about the program when I put that together. Well, now there is an official The Art of Craftsmanship Revisited: New York website, from Parsons and LVMH. The most interesting part to me are all the videos, including these two (plus 1) that are stained glass related.

Video on 'Stained Glass Artist' Nancy Nicholson. FYI: I've known Nancy from way back when, in the Boston days we worked shoulder to shoulder... 25 years ago now.

Craft Nouveau from Art of Craftsmanship on Vimeo.

I also found (on vimeo) this simple 55 second shot of Nancy's workspace panning over to see her working on the LVMH design. As much as I like the official edited piece on Nancy, I would love to see more of this.

Untitled from Conway L @ Parsons on Vimeo.

This is the video on 'Stained Glass Restorer' Thomas Venturella. I have met Tom, and I even visited his studio once, though it was almost 20 years ago.

T.R.E.M.L. from Art of Craftsmanship on Vimeo.

Artwork from The Art of Craftsmanship Revisited: New York, including Nancy's panel, is on display at Governor's Island, New York, on Saturdays and Sundays, June 5 - June 27, 11 AM - 5 PM.

If you want to get more exhibition details, plus the names of the student team award winners, check out The Art of Craftsmanship Revisited: New York official press release.

Time to Pass The Hat

I don't do this very often. In fact, this is only the second time I've made a direct appeal in the six and a half years I've been doing this blog. I've never considered the blog to be money making entity, but I've spent a huge amount of my time on this and the economic times are still shaky.

If you've ever wanted to say a simple thank you for the time and effort I've put into the hundreds of entries I've done in Vitreosity, a donation would be a very nice gesture and this would be a good time. Thanks in advance to those who choose to donate.

Judith Schaechter Interview

The opening for the new Judith Schaechter gallery show at Claire Oliver Gallery, Beauty and the Beef, was last weekend, and I am so sorry I couldn't be there. The exhibition is up through June 26th, 2010. You can see the official press release for Beauty and the Beef (one page pdf).

I did this interview with Judith Schaechter as part of the latest newsletter for the American Glass Guild, which I edited. It's a four page pdf, and 1.5mb.

There is also this video on YouTube, that I mentioned in a post about 6 months ago, but did not embed. Here is the embed. In the light of seeing the finished pieces it's interesting to see the same panels while they were in process.

Blended Halftones

Halftone screens are what I use in my stained glass photographic transfer work. This image shows the original greyscale image, next to the 45 degree angled line screen and the 90 degree angled diamond screen, and then a 70 degree angled diamond.

Follow up to a video I made last september called Transforming to halftone screens in Photoshop.

Click on the image for a more high resolution image to pop up.

Halftone Process on Wikipedia

I rarely just lay down the halftone and let it be, like most people. I usually blend it after applying the paint.

These are two versions of portraits of the stained glass artist Sarah Whitman.

This is from my Sarah Whitman Quotation Panel.

While the paint and oil will blend on their own, I usually do at least some light blending with a badger blender. This one was more lightly blended, and being a fairly high contrast image, there are some areas where glass is not covered in paint at all. This can be disconcerting depending on the glass and the lighting conditions at the clear areas tend to blast out and clash with the illusion of the image.

This is from the Four Women panel.

This is one that is more vigoruously blended. More oil is sprayed on and the paint is not only blended with a badger but also with smaller brushes, quickly. As soon as the desired effect is achieved this would probably have to go before a fan to arrest the blending.

more on the process below the fold...