In yesterday’s post, the definition of bevels included the mention of “geometric configurations (called ‘clusters’) for incorporation into leaded glass work.”

Ah, clusters…

The fun thing about clusters is that you have ready-made pieces that you simply fit together (with copper foil or some type of came, i.e. lead), and then fill in the rest of your pattern with pieces to accomplish the desired panel shape (rectangle, square, circle…).

For example, I purchased a bevel cluster with ten bevels that – when pieced together – would look like this ornate design:

By cutting glass in the shapes of “1” through “8,” as pictured below, one could turn the design into a rectangular panel with the bevel cluster pieces (“a” through “j” in the diagram) centered within the rectangle. A simple example:

Something I like to do for fun is use the bevel pieces in a more unconventional way and incorporate them into panels to create entirely different patterns. In the example below I kind of “exploded” the bevel cluster and came up with this design:

And here is the completed panel:

I need to work on my window photography.

I titled the panel “Ascending.”

The bevels used in the “Manifest” design that appears on the header of this blog is another example of using a cluster in an unconventional way. Can you guess what the design was originally intended to be?

  C is for Cluster.