Piece.by.Piece.

Posted on January 17, 2015 by Maggie C

Monday, January 2015 – Dear Diary: I’ve had my pattern laid out for this stained glass panel for a while now, but for some reason I can’t get myself to go into the studio and start cutting glass.

Maybe it’s the dog. Every time I head to the studio he starts running amok all over the house.
Maybe it’s just getting over the inertia of starting a new project.

I’ll start cutting glass tomorrow.

Tuesday – Dear Diary: The studio just doesn’t feel right. I got in there and cut one piece of glass, but something’s off.

It could be the new layout of the studio. I just moved and so the setup isn’t quite the same. I just need time to get used to it.

I’ll do better tomorrow.

Wednesday – Dear Diary: I went into the studio today and cut another piece of glass. Just one. This time I began to feel dizzy and ill.

Maybe it’s the mats on the floor. They’re squishier on this floor than at my previous studio.

I just need to get my “sea legs.” Or would that be my studio legs?

Thursday – Dear Diary: The more I think about it, there could be a number of reasons for feeling ill yesterday.

Perhaps I drank too much coffee and overdosed on caffeine.
I probably need to improve my diet. I could have felt dizzy because of all the crappy food I’ve been eating.

I’ll eat better tomorrow.

Friday – Dear Diary: I think the studio just needs airing out. There was some nasty stuff on the walls when I moved in, and the fumes from the bleach-based cleaner I used were strong enough to fell a horse. Had there been a horse in my studio.

I’ll open a window and get some fresh air in here.

Saturday – Dear Diary: The open window thing didn’t work. I forgot that there are storm windows on this side of the house, and I didn’t open the storm window when I opened the inner one, so no fresh air got in. Oops! Today I’ll open BOTH windows.

Sunday – Dear Diary: Wow! It’s been a week already, and I’ve only gotten two pieces cut. Let’s see… It’s January. There are 91 pieces to this panel. At this rate, I’ll be ready to solder it together in roughly 44 more weeks. Right around Thanksgiving. But then we’ll be into the holiday season and it’s hard to get much of anything done during the holidays.

New Year’s Resolution for 2016:

Get this stained glass panel finished!!!

Note: No horses were harmed during the photographing of this post. The dog, however, was chastised. But just a little.

Serenity: Weekly Photo Challenge

Posted on January 16, 2015 by Maggie C

This week’s Daily Post photo challenge is about sharing one’s interpretation of serenity.

It got me thinking about how I would depict serenity in stained glass. Not a serene setting or scene per se, but the actual quality of serenity. Or how would one interpret happiness, joy, sadness or anger in an abstract manner using glass as a medium?

Anger, for example, could be done up in shades of dark or flaring reds and slashing lines and sharp angles. But then it could also be the cold, icy blue calmness of the type of anger that says, “I don’t get mad; I just get even.”

Makes me want to play around with such concepts and see what kind of designs and color schemes might arise.

But on to the photo challenge:

Serenity can be about finding a calm, peaceful setting in nature where one can slow down and restore their sense of balance.

Or serenity could mean spending quiet time in the company of loved ones.

But to me, serenity comes mostly from allowing myself to

be who I really am

wherever I am

in the moment…

… and to have that be perfectly okay.

Serenity

Visual Fodder

Posted on January 14, 2015 by Maggie C

Coming up with ideas for stained glass panel designs is perhaps the most fun part of the whole creative process. Someone asked me once about how I get my ideas. I told him that they just kind of evolve. I just wait, and they show up.

That’s not entirely true. I don’t just sit around waiting for an epiphany. I’d be waiting a very long time if that were the case. What I really do is feed my imagination.

I take walks in nature. I take walks in urbania. (I know, urbania’s not a real word, but it should be, don’t you think? Like, inclusive of cities, suburbs, towns, strip malls… Maybe there’s already a word for that. I’ll give Merriam Webster a call someday to find out.)

I take photographs everywhere I go. Well, not everywhere. That would just be creepy. But by consciously looking for photo subjects, I am training myself to notice things that might otherwise be overlooked. Basically I’m gathering images to study and play with and ruminate over.

And then all that visual fodder begins to shift and sift and coalesce into an image that can be translated into glass. Not to make this sound all ethereal and pretentious (or like a cow chewing its cud… “ruminate?” “fodder?”)

Sometimes the “image” is as simple as a brick-like pattern.

Sometimes it’s as silly as “Three Penguins on Ice.”

Maybe someday I will experience an epiphany. But until that day arrives, I will continue to feed my imagination. There’s not much worse than a starving imagination.

Where do you find your ideas?

Shadowed: Weekly Photo Challenge

Posted on January 9, 2015 by Maggie C

The theme of today’s photo challenge, as offered weekly at The Daily Post, is “Shadowed.” The premise is that, “Experimenting with shadows can be a fun and rewarding way to push yourself to try something new with your camera and your surroundings, and look beyond the obvious shot.”

So today I’m posting some “shadow” photos that I’ve taken recently.

But what I think would be really fun and rewarding would be to experiment with using shadow as a main element in a stained glass panel. Note to self: add that to the queue of design ideas to play with.

“The beginnings and ends of shadow lie between the light and darkness and may be infinitely diminished and infinitely increased. Shadow is the means by which bodies display their form. The forms of bodies could not be understood in detail but for shadow.”

Leonardo da Vinci

“Without black, no color has any depth. But if you mix black with everything, suddenly there’s shadow – no, not just shadow, but fullness. You’ve got to be willing to mix black into your palette if you want to create something that’s real.”

Amy Grant

“Shadow is a colour as light is, but less brilliant; light and shadow are only the relation of two tones.”

Paul Cezanne

Shadowed

Manifesting through Stained Glass

Posted on January 5, 2015 by Maggie C

NOTE: This post was the first written for my now defunct blog Glass Manifestations. I have since folded many of the Glass posts into my What Rhymes with Stanza blog.

Manifest —

3. verb (transitive) to show plainly; reveal or display

to prove; put beyond doubt or question

Creating stained glass panels is a very personal process for me. From the inspiration, to the design, selection of colors and textures, and then to the actual crafting of the piece. Sure, I like to sell my work and keep my cupboard stocked with food and my studio stocked with glass.

But what mostly matters to me is the process. The quest for ideas and inspiration and the way they “manifest” out of the seemingly mundane fabric of my simple life. The challenge of translating those ideas into a dynamic two-dimensional design. The sensory pleasure of looking at material options, feeling the heft of the sheets of glass, holding them up to the window to study the interplay of color and light, tracing my fingers (carefully!) across the surface to gauge how the texture will contribute to the overall design. And then the careful application of age old techniques to craft the materials into a final cohesive piece of art.

And finally, the moment of truth, when I lift the completed panel off the work table, move it to a window to let the sunlight filter through, step back and experience how my original inspiration has morphed into a tangible representation constructed with glass and lead.

I gain a lot of insight during the process of creating a panel, and again whenever I contemplate the finished piece.

~~Glass Manifestations~~ [My original blog site was] about glass (sort of) because working with glass is how I do a lot of my processing (thoughts, feelings, ideas, inspirations…), and hence a lot of my thoughts, feelings and ideas are made manifest in my art. But it’s also about insight and growth, in the hope that what I manifest tomorrow, or next week or next year – in life as well as in glass – will continue to improve. In quality, in meaningfulness, and in pure, simple pleasure.

What Rhymes with Stanza?

Words at rest, words at play