light made solid

Here's a sampling of items I found recently while searching for other stained glass blogs:

1. KiloAlphaTango has a nice stained glass photo.
   
2. Daily Spewage has some photos of raw glass.
   
3. Adina shares some photos and experiences of working on a Unitarian glass image
   
4. Brienze also has some nice photos and detailed explanations of working on an outdoor tree scene.
   
5. L2O2 talks a bit about the stained glass hobby.
   

Stained glass news out of Syracuse, NY: A group of high school students from West Genesee have put the finishing touches on a 15 panel stained glass window for a local veteran's hospital. The window honors the sacrifices of members of the American Armed Forces, featuring an eagle, an American flag and images representing all five branches of the armed services.

Just put together a new section on the site for customer testimonials. The first one is from Janet Waters, a restoration client of ours here in Pittsburgh. She writes:

It is with enthusiasm that I write this letter of recommendation for Peter Boucher, an artist in stained glass restoration. I recently moved to Pittsburgh and purchased a large, brick Victorian home on Saint James Street. One of the reasons I purchased the home was that it was filled with large, beautiful leaded glass windows. The largest and most beautiful pieces were literally falling apart. Over the years, temperature changes caused the lead to bend and buckle and much of the glass was cracked or shattered. After obtaining multiple bids to restore the windows, I asked Peter to do the work, and I feel fortunate to have made a wise choice. Not only were his prices far better than his competitors', his workmanship was unsurpassable. He did a complete disassembly, then replaced broken glass and releaded two enormous windows. He also did minor repairs on a number of others. He was totally professional in his manner and arrived on schedule and worked in a tidy fashion. I would recommend him to others without reservation.

Stained glass news from right here in Pittsburgh - well, just outside of Pittsburgh actually. Molcany Stained Glass is located in North Huntingdon Township and is run by Richard Molcany and his wife Maggie. Molcany has been making stained glass for over thirty years, and doing it full-time ever since the mill where he worked closed down, the Mesta Machine, Co. Molcany's work can be viewed in a number of churches, homes and businesses in the area.

Molcany's work is available online at his studio's website.

The other day I came across some very pretty stained glass work by an artist named Anne Ryan Miller. Her work deals extensively with wildlife and environmental imagery. You can find out more on her about page, or by having a look at her galleries. Also on her about page, she has a bit of information explaining how she gets such great gorgeous detail in her images.

By using a metal overlay technique, I can hand-cut very intricate designs. Using landscape and wildlife motifs, I create a pictorial effect. By applying the metal on the front and back of opalescent glass, I can achieve an enormous amount of depth. By allowing the natural light to diffuse around the metal from the backside, I can obtain a shadowy, misty effect, allowing the front to display a tantalizingly strong silhouette. This is an original and unusual technique.

This is an interesting piece from an Atlanta news site. The article is about Lawrence Rapier, who runs a company called Stained Glass Overlay. Apparently, they use a different technique for their windows than traditional stained glass. Rapier explains it here:

Rapier said the stained glass overlay process differs from the traditional way of making stained glass in which pieces of colored glass are cut and adhered with lead. The glass may bow over time, he said.

"We take a piece of safety tempered glass and then bond the bevels, Mylar film and lead to the glass," he said. "It's a solid, seamless one-piece construction."

Another benefit is that Mylar film has ultra-violet protection and guards against fading.

Worth checking out as an alternative to traditional techniques. Here's a link to the Stained Glass Overlay website.