Asheville's Biltmore Estate creates Tiffany floral exhibit
okay....
The PBS show History Detectives just ran an episode with a segment on a watercolor design by Anne Weston. Anne Weston was one of L.C. Tiffany's stained glass designers, though the program makes it clear that the details of her work with Tiffany are very fuzzy indeed, as are the details of most of Tiffany's designers.
There is an embedded video available but I've had bad luck with embedded video from PBS. I suggest going to the History Detectives site and viewing the full episode there. The Tiffany section is the last one, starting at 37:50. You can also download a transcript.
If you only watched the program and not looked at the transcript, note that the name of the stained glass restorer is Tom Venturella, not Paul as she says in the program. I've visited his studio, though a long time ago. He really is one of the best in the business.
I did a blog post on the Minnehaha window they refer to in the program. It was a matter of some controversy last year as a local government agency tried to sell it off to meet their budget. Fortunately for them, they saw the better of it and did not sell it. Good for them.
I first heard about art cars when I saw the documentary Wild Wheels, which shows an amazing array of art cars and their owners.
I like art cars, though I don't know why. I've never created an art car, and I'm not much of a car person in general. I haven't even seen that many actual art cars, mainly seeing videos and photos of them. I do have fantasies of someday going to the big Houston Art Car Parade. Maybe some day.
Trailer for Wild Wheels (1992)
So, what does that have to do with stained glass?
Not much, but I did come across a Flickr set that shows a stained glass art car. I've not seen the car in person, nor have I seen any video of it, and I know nothing of the backstory. Still, the pictures on Flickr show a VW Bug covered with a genuine stained glass mosaic and it looks very nice indeed, and I think that's pretty cool.
From Flickrite "Look" - Stained Glass VW
2 videos below the fold, both featuring Harrod Blank, the filmmaker who made Wild Wheels. One is a trailer for Blank's more recent film documentary about art cars, Automorphosous, and the other video is a 28 minute interview with Harrod Blank.
Trailer for Automorphosous -
"What's Up Wit' That? - Art Cars" from YouTube channel KMVT