Why Stained Glass?

When HW2 and I moved to this house several years ago, we were particularly taken by the Frank Lloyd Wright type prairie style that this flat-roofed house seemed to be. It was built in 1925 and probably reflected that era of house building. There are two large glass panels on either side of the front door that seemed to me to beg to have stained glass inserts. By accident I discovered that the local community college offered classes in making stained glass. Imagine my delight when I also discovered they were given at half price to seniors! So I embarked on my quest to learn how to make stained glass. Good friends Beth and Harold encouraged me in this endeavor and gave me materials left over from Beth's stained glass work. Being a type "A" personality, I went faithfully to work and produced three panels instead of one since, I planned to hang them in front of a three part window for my first class project. This class was on stained glass in the copper foil style developed by Louis Tiffany around the turn of the last century. My second class was in leaded stained glass where glass is inserted in pieces of lead that have the cross section of an H, and the pieces fit into the lead. Here is where I began my project to fill our two window panels with some stained glass. In both classes I adapted designs of Frank Lloyd Wright, which seemed to fit this style house. My windows were about seven feet by 15 inches, so each took a considerable amount of glass and finally were filled by four panels for each window. Again my type "A" personality took over, and for this class I completed a window for the left side of the door. In the following months I repeated the design for the right side, and you can see by the picture how it all turned out.

The unexpected part for me was that I have really enjoyed making stained glass and have tried to extend my abilities as I make new things. The pleasure of selling completed works or giving them to family and friends is the icing on the cake. Maybe I have finally found my vocation, and like Grandma Moses, I hope to be able to make stained glass pieces into my nineties.