Cut piece #165

L & J told me not to hurry on completing this piece but it's still going to be awhile before it's done. Just missing the section to the right of the guy and some overlay pieces to simulate bodies under water. Then assemblage and some paint.

That and they're good friends. If I finish it sooner rather than later, they can pay later LOL.

The Flaming Lips in Columbus

Hands down the best show I've EVER seen.

Homebrew store logo piece

The best beer store in the Miami Valley is opening a separate store front for beer, cheese, wine, and soap making supplies. I was looking at the logo on their website one day and thought the design would transfer to stained glass well. I talked to a friend of mine that works there and he suggested I work something up to present to the owner to see if he wanted to go forward with it. I ran into the owner at a beer tasting last weekend and he had already heard about my idea. He said, "Yeah, we could do that". I had most of the material, except for the orange on the foxes body. Matching it as close as possible, I proceeded to scale the design 4 times as large as the copy I had. So now it's 28" round. Cut the pieces, only 39. And today, I assembled and soldered. The above picture is where it stands now. Next step is to cement it, work putty between the glass and the came. Then, I'm going to paint the details of the face. And finally, solder some hooks on the back for hanging. "Should" be ready for the stores grand opening. Which is soon.

Cut piece #92

When I cut the glass for a piece, I number the pieces with a sharpie. One, to see how many pieces actually go into it. And two, in case they get mixed around I will know exactly where they go within the pattern when assembling. Sometimes I don't really want to know how many pieces I cut. Take the posted picture for example. I just cut piece number 92 today. Does it look like it's anywhere close to being completed, No. Thus telling me, I have a LONG way to go before the fun of assembling starts. I'm not complaining, every step is important and needs my full attention. But it's that whole delayed gratification thing. Must keep head down and focus on the light at the end the tunnel.

I'm Alive!!

Yeah, believe it or not, I'm finally back at it and making some progress. I've been Beer Geeking out and although not nearly taking as much of my time, writing music reviews for a magazine a friend of mine publishes. First issue I participated in will be out mid-August.

Anyway, back to glass. Glass has been purchased, the pattern has been drawn and now it's time to get down to bid-ness. It will take some time to get all the pieces cut but pics of progress will be more forthcoming than, say, the last post on this project. So stay tunned.

Three Floyds DarkLord Day 2009

Every year in late April, beer geeks from around the country and the world pilgrimage to Munster, IN. Why you ask? It's because it's the only day of the year to buy Three Floyd's brewing company's Darklord Russian Imperial Stout. Still you ask, why? Not only can you buy Darklord but lovers of craft beer bring their stashes of rare beers and locals to taste and trade. That and the event is a huge outdoor party for beer geeks to wallow in their (our) obsession. It has gotten so popular amongst beer lovers that they had to start a ticketing system where upon redeeming the ticket your guarantied to be able to purchase a certain number of bottles. You can tell by the pictures of the line, just a few people showed up, my guesstimate is 2 to 3 thousand. I was so active trading and meeting different people my friends described me as crack dealeresque. The last picture is some of the acquired goodies. The one on the left is Surly Darkness and has a similar special event for the release and is more rare than Three Floyd's Darklord. The one in the middle is Flossmoor Station's Wooden Hell and is a bourbon barrel aged barleywine. That was brewed once and likely won't be brewed again. The last is the 2009 Three Floyd's Darklord and that was why I went. Sorry I don't plan on trading any of those. I plan on sharing them with some friends.

Artist Spotlight: Xia Xiaowan

Google is a wonderful thing. Occasionally I will search Google images for new ideas for Stained glass. After digging through thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, I come across something fantastic. Enter Xia Xiaowan, a Chinese artist that uses special pencils. I work with glass & have no idea what he uses, wax maybe?? But Xia Xiaowan doesn't just draw on one piece of glass. The drawings are layered on different pieces and stacked in front of or behind one another. It creates an optical illusion and essentially a three dimensional drawing. I've been drawing since elementary school (I'm 32 now) and this technique blows my mind. To be able to think about drawing in multiple dimensions makes my brain cells curl up in a ball, hide in a dark corner of my skull and gently rock back and forth muttering to themselves. Amazing!