It'll Just Be Saggin'

MiMi's Lighthouse Window is a certainly stunning.  Although it would be a stretch to claim any similarities between MiMi's psychological and physical work, the symbolic effectiveness of this piece can only be diminished by a viewer's untrained eye.   Truly, details dominate the scenery while its differentials become distorted through MiMi's diverse artistry.  X marks the spot and wire work is always the special sauce.

 

 

 

Is it Seafood or is it life?  Angie's work explores the complex relationship between Jungian archetypes and overextended predilections of unfulfilled consciousness.  Within her art Angie procures new variations of still life which are manufactured from mundane and transcendent discourse. But is it really news?

 

 

 

 

Kerry's Cardinal Window dictates that shifting replicants can indeed turn into frozen stills through diligent and artistic perseverance.  What the viewer is left with is a swooping tribute to the darkness of our existence and the lightness of our being.  And still, he flies.

 

 

 

 

 

The hands of a Warrior.  Ever since Melissa was a pre-adolescent she has been fascinated by the endless oscillation of the spectral perceptions of religion. Her colors and the unblemished clears s that she's utilized prevail a sense of what could be along with a dawn of new understanding.  Now, let's put our hands to Heaven.

 

 

 

Annette's pair of Suncatchers become more detailed and thrive even harder as she digs deeper into her cognizant origins.   The mainstream public's taste for bright and loud are ignored by Nettie's exploratory use of wholehearted traditional hues counterbalanced with a swath of grand arcing themes. A Rose by any other name.

 

 

 

 

Linda F's Cross is ice personified as its sparkling elegance become transformed through her diligent and academic practice.  The viewer is left with a moving tribute to the possibilities of enlightenment and guidance to weather our current climate.  It's a calming presence on a turbulent sea of antiquity.

 

 

 

 

Running the risk of scoring superficial points, we should note that Jeannette's Shell Suncatchers exhibit a punk esthetic without being saddled by an underlying  faux narrative. These post-counterculture entries elicit meaning for the truly lost.  If you listen closely, you can even hear the ocean. 

 

  

 

 

Why did Let feed the need to create a Suncatcher containing colors that she deemed to be cinematic for her united conceptual Cross of presentation? Perhaps the viewer (and I) can answer this burning query
 by presenting meaningful facts about subjective matter in an attempt to understand more about Let.  Live and Let lives!

 

 

 

 

Is it a state, or a state of mind?  Lara asks this question from within her latest unassuming piece of art.  We are all aimless at times, not knowing where we are or where we should be.   These are deep, layered questions that cannot be easily answered unless we cast our fears aside and look deeply into our heartfelt emotive preclusions. We're not there, we're here!

 

 

 

 

Traditional gender roles need not apply here as Susan R's Reindeer disassociates from its identity from within its Christmas accoutrements.  Alas, people will experience that which they require, regardless of pseudo-popular trends. Supposition aside, the reindeer knows the way to carry the sleigh.

 

 

 

Not being saddled with the same baggage as her less skilled Thibodeauxian counterparts, Jeannette has come full circle on her Sailboat Window.  Lovely new tensions are synthesized from both orderly and random textures in this exquisite piece. Sailing takes her away.

  

 

The noir aspects of parenthood have clearly taken relevance to the birthing process Barbara undertook to begin this Rooster Window.   Even in this incomplete state it already speaks of the darkness of our era, intermittent derivatives becoming transformed, and the social outposts of our culture.  These, as we all know, are themes inherent to a Rooster.

 

A less consummate glass crafter would search throughout their distant past for evidence and/or reasons for collateral damage within a modern family for inspiration.  Alas, Susan D has abandoned traditional reasoning and embraced the current ebb of ethnic apathy in her latest works. The green flesh simply, yet succinctly, screams of injustice.  The black crow thinketh its own bird's white.

 

 

 

Sheri's coffee Window has  provided her with a vehicle to further navigate glass avenues she began to explore when she abandoned them in her youth.  There's a sense of nihilism here surrounded by a blooming possibility of, dare I say it?  New order! Yet there's a burning axiomatic question clearly postured within the piece which can only to be answered by the viewer: Caffeinated or De-caf?

 

 

 

Martha's newest work explores the relationship between the tyranny of ageing and the effects of self-imposed ethic values. With influences obviously derived from her readings of both Soren Kierkegaard and Hans Christian Andersen, Martha's staggering palette arouses new insights created from both opaque and transparent layers.  Geaux Tigers!

 

 

 

Desperately searching for an escape hatch from a false paradigm, Linda L has captured the tiniest slice Christmas and immobilized it in time.  With fears fast becoming the tying laces of the straps of the life which bind us, this window makes us question the gifts of others. It also erases the 'so-called' lines between genres without exploiting the Frankincense and Myrrh.

 

 

 

 

Angie's hard at work forging symmetry between what she once was as an individual and what she has now metamorphosized into.  Her Shell Window plumbs glorious new depths while resisting the temptation to search throughout obsolete emotions for evidence and reasons explaining how and why Angie resolved to present four shells rather than five.  She sells Sea Shells.

 

  

 

New combinations have been generated from both the opaque and transparent structures within Cheryl's Winged Cross.  Subtle shifts in detail reveal a deeper meaning and mood behind the lesser obvious significance of this piece.  Her wings already exist-- all she need do now is to fly.

 

 

 

Lastly, is it minimal?  Perhaps at first glance, but if you look deeply into the abyss of red you'll discover a full rich tapestry buried beneath the obligatory layer of crimson in Susan R's Sleigh.  If the spectator truly opens their eyes they'll discover a richness of colors beyond the obvious which resides over the river and through the woods.

 

  

 

Paul

Bayou Salé GlassWorks

 

She's Trying To Tie Us To A Murder

Lara's Africa Window is a work of art that any glass crafter will appreciate.   The window is her own design and incorporates an African landscape with a setting sun contained within the outline of the continent.  Lara then went for the home run by surrounding her window with a woven border that contains more pieces than most projects contain in their entirety.  Luckily she was able to use a strip cutter for all of those pieces but there was still a lot of time spent grinding and foiling them.  The end result is unmistakable and makes Lara's window even that more beautiful. 

 

 

 

Let's Magnolia Window sort of proves me wrong since I always say that people focus on the subject matter and not the background glass.   Alas, there's an exception to EVERY rule and in this case it's because Let choose such a vibrant and stunning color for her background.   Yet somehow it doesn't compete with the flower at all and ends up complimenting it beautifully.  Job well done!

 

  

 

 

This is the first of two completed pieces by Cindy this week.   Her Bronkin' Buck Window really came alive and I think that the beauty of the pattern was captured perfectly by her attention to detail.  I love everything about this from the design right down to the colors she picked.

 

  

 

 

Martha's '59 Belair Car Window made it out the door just in time for it to be gifted over the Easter Holiday.  Martha knew that this would take patience and time to complete and she stuck to her guns and didn't rush it one bit.  All of those thin, long pieces were a chore to cut and grind but soldering them was even more stressful since they were prime to crack due to heat.  In the end she did wonderfully and there's not a break in site.  I guess you can say that this is faultless.

 

 

 

Jeannette's Shell Window is finished and she's also done an incredible job on her project.  I don't believe that I helped her cut a single piece of glass for this which makes me feel both guilty and proud at the same time because I like to help our students whether they need it or not.   Here, however, Jeannette has proven herself to be less of a student and more of a stained glass master!

 

 

 

 

Linda L has soldered the second of her three Nativity Scene Windows and has taken it home so that she can begin the final third panel of this set.   Here we see  two Wise Men approaching baby Jesus who is in the panel that sits to the right of this window.   The third panel will be reside on the extreme right of the set and will be the same size as this one.  I suspect that we will see Linda start that one upon her return.

 

  

 

 

Lara also made a Hoop Project of her own design.  A simple outline of the state of Louisiana with St. Mary Parish highlighted with a colorful heart.   Lara's eye is always spot on and her decision to NOT make the heart red but rather multi-colored is the defining piece in this design.  The contrast against the neutral colored Louisiana is perfection.

 

 

 

 

Barbara has made Clear Beveled Windows before but this one seemed to go by pretty quickly even for her. This was finished in less than three weeks which means that in terms of class time she's got about eight hours into it.   Bevels and clear glass always work well together and Barbara made this even more striking by coloring the lead black.  

 

  

 

 

Jan's completed her Our Lady of Guadalupe Window and the end result was well worth all of the effort she put into making it.  It's a complicated pattern whose complexity was raised by the fact that it was reduced in size from the original pattern thus making all of the pieces smaller.   For the border and the background that didn't matter much but the pieces that make up Mary herself were now small enough to make cutting and grinding them more of a chore.   Alas, Jan handled it all with ease.   It's divine.

 

  

 

 

Cindy also completed her Blue Bonnets Hoop design and again I like her use of colors in this.  Rather than staying static with one shade of blue for the flowers, Cindy used two different hues of blues with some off white accents which give the Blue Bonnets an added sense of depth.   As for the hoop, well, everything's better with Blue Bonnets on it.

 

 

 

Shelley's American Flag/Rifle Window saw the light of day this week and as I drove by the Ammo Store the other day I couldn't help but notice that it was already hanging up.   I guess that means that Shelley has what you'd call a satisfied customer on her hands.

 

  

 

Judy finished her Rectangular Geometric Window.  She wanted it to be colorful and that's exactly what she got.   Because there were straight lines coming out to the top edge at evenly positioned points of the design she was able to forgo a border and mount the hooks into those straight lines.   It's certainly striking, wouldn't you say?

  

 

 

Betty was on fire again this week having completed three separate items.   First she finished a Silverware Dragonfly, then there was a Five Beveled Cross Suncatcher and then lastly she put the finishing touches on a Butterfly Suncatcher made of two different clear textures.  All are perfect and ready to be purchased!

 

MiMi's Lighthouse Window got a border this week and that means that when it returns she will add some wire work to it and probably, potentially, most likely, hopefully, have this completed. It's already a work of art but the little extras that MiMi will be adding to this that will surely put it over the top.

 

 

 

 

Sheri is making her Coffee Window stand out by making the cup out of broken antique blue willow china pieces.   This will definitely give it an authentic looking cup!  Kudos to her for coming up with a great idea.

 

  

 

Cindy is also hard at work on a second Hoop design which features a Stethoscope.   This is essentially complete as it only needs to be attached to the hoop and then colored.  Expect to see this finished when Cindy returns in one week.

  

 

 

June loved the Rooster Suncatcher that she made a while back so much that she's making another one now.  We've now made an official pattern for this and June is well under way on the cutting process of this piece.

 

  

 

Let was hard at work creating what we are now going to call our 'Scrap Glass Cross'.  This pattern uses a lot of different colors in small quantities but the end result is a good sized suncatcher.  The beauty of using small assorted colors in that you can use a lot of scrap glass when making this and as you can see, she's moving right along on it.

 

  

 

Susan D's got Four Grinch hands which are now completely ground, foiled and ready for some solder.  These are not your standard Grinch Hands as they are about half the size of the original design that you see all over the internet.  Although they use less glass they take much more patience to make since you're dealing with extremely tiny pieces.   One slip on the grinder can do a lot of damage on a small piece of glass so precision is a must on these.

 

  

 

Melissa's 719 Address Window is all tacked together and ready to be soldered.   Again, regular readers of this Blog already know that soldering goes quickly for Melissa so I'm saying that this will be completed very shortly.  However, duty calls and Melissa has a Praying Hands Window to make ASAP so this will be put on the back burner for a week or two before she can begin soldering it.

 

  

 

 

Jeannette has two more Shells in the works but she's doing these as stand alone suncatchers rather than incorporating them into another Seashell Window.  She's also got the dove portion of a Dove/Cross Suncatcher cut out so expect to see her complete these possibly as soon as next week.

 

 

 

Finally we look at Susan R's  Reindeer which has all been cut, ground and wrapped.  Not only that, she's also got the front of this soldered already which means that she'll finish this Reindeer off when she comes back in.  She'll be making a few more of these in the weeks to come and I can't help but notice that each one gets completed quicker than the one which preceded it.

  

 

And there ya have it.  It was quite a productive week in terms of finished projects but it looks as though we will have a few finished things to show off in our next post as well.

Paul

Bayou Salé GlassWorks

 

Tack BEFORE You Take Your Ambien

Annette's Rustic Stained Glass Cross looks amazing and you could easily believe that it came straight out of an ancient church.   Annette made this entirely at home and only brought it in so I could get a picture of it which I'm glad she did.

 

 

 

It's been a while but Cindy has made another Bicycle Wheel Spinner.  These look deceptively simple but each piece of glass has to be patterned from the specific location it will reside in as no two pieces are the same width or length.  There's also the issue of prepping all of the spokes with sandpaper so they will accept solder.  But as you can see, Cindy did a wonderful job.

 

 

 

 

Annette's latest Mobile is balanced to perfection and swings freely back and forth without ever tangling due to careful Butterfly placement.  These are almost a nightmare to get balanced but this second one DID go a little faster than the one she made before Christmas Last Year.

 

 

 

 

Betty has two more beveled windows completed and both of them have a background that flows flawlessly throughout the entire design.   You can really see the effect on the Fleur De Lis Window.  The FDL was traced on top of a sheet of black baroque glass cut to the exact size that Betty needed it.  Betty then made careful cuts into the glass and then hollowed out the center area where the bevel would reside.  One break and it's all over.  This technique works wonderfully on skies.

 

 

 

Sheri has another Humming Bird Suncatcher under her belt  and she's gotten both the eye and the hook attachment  down to a science now.

 

 

 

Ann's new Modern Cross has a very distinct and never before seen color scheme.   This started off with her using a green and tan colored glass that had just a hint of orange running throughout it so Ann decided to add  a vibrant orange into the mix to come up with what you see below!

 

Martha's '59 Belair Car is all cut, ground, wrapped and tacked!   This is going to be road worthy when we next see it again because there isn't that much left to go on this.

  

Steve's got a stained glass Succulent all cut out and each petal has already been foiled and leaded.   We only need to tack all of those petals together into 4 separate 'rings' to form the 3D flower.   Steve was also playing with a glass saw this past week and managed to do a great job cutting out the gecko that you see on the right.

 

 

 

Sheri has a Coffee Window well under construction and it looks like she'll be grinding her pieces when she comes back in.   There are a lot of wisps of steam in this which in turn make 'wisps' of background glass so I suspect that it may take more than a week for her to finish grinding this.  Nothing good comes quickly though!

 

 

 

Melissa's Address Window is back under construction and this week she changed the color of  four of the pieces of glass, completed grinding those pieces, and then foiled everything.   After that she didn't call it a night but instead tacked her window together and picked out the glass that she'll be using for her border.  Look out, Melissa is on fire!

 

 

 

Judy came in with a simple but effective idea and by the time class was finished she was ready to tack her new Geometric Window together.  She won't have a border on this which means that we  should see this completed and hanging up with light behind it when she comes back in. 

  

 

Steve isn't the only person working on a 3D Succulent-- his wife, Lisa is as well.  They are both at the same stage in the creation of their 3D Flowers but instead of also working with an intricate Gecko, Lisa is also working on a honeycomb suncatcher upon which she will affix a bee to.  I guess a family that Succulents together stays together...

 

 

 

And Susan's Grinch Hands are all coming together.  Now that they've each been ground Susan has begun foiling each of these tiny pieces.   She has more patience than I, that's for sure.

 

  

 

 

Linda L is ready to get the border attached to the second panel of her Nativity Scene Windows.  Here we see some wise men possibly bringing frankincense and myrrh.  Where's the gold?   Maybe in panel number three...

 

 

 

Barbara's clear Beveled Window is all tacked together and she's taken it along home with her to complete the soldering there.  When this is completed she'll color the lead black which is a perfect contrast against the clear textured glasses that she's used throughout this piece.

  

 

 

With the front side of her Seashell Window pretty much soldered, Jeannette looks to be ready to wrap this up upon her return.   Everyone in class loves this design and there are people already saying that they want to use the pattern next.

 

  

 

Let is also just about finished with her latest window as well.  That background glass really sets her Magnolia off nicely and I think we will be ordering more of this glass soon.

 

 

 

I'm also thinking that we're going to be seeing a LOT of finished windows next week because Cindy's Broncin' Buck (or Bucking Bronco) Window is nearly completed as well.  I can't wait to see this one lit up!

 

  

 

Wow, and here's another Window that may very well be completed next week.  Kerry's Christmas Cardinal is all tacked together and only awaiting solder.   Since this is a panel rather than a large window I believe that he'll easily complete this upon his return.

 

 

 

With the last row of her Traditional Window wrapped and tacked into place MiMi will be adding six fill in pieces and then move along to the beveled border.  MiMi stays within the lines and always shows a degree of perfection that's hard to match.

 

  

 

Angie's Seafood Window is so very close to being completed.  I really hope that we can get it done next week but I'm just not sure at this point.   She's done such a great job on this that I don't want her to rush and hurry through it at this incredibly important point of its creation.

 

 

 

As you can plainly see, Susan R's next Reindeer is well under way.  I still want to know how these guys (and gal's) fly since Reindeer don't have wings.   File that under 'Things That Make You Go Mmmmmmmm.'

 

  

 

 

We have another Winged Cross under construction and this one is being made by Annette.   It has already been ground so Annette's plan is to wrap this at home and possibly even get it soldered before she comes back in.   I've gotta say that she did a great job on this because it's certainly NOT a beginner's pattern. 

  

 

 

Speaking of Crosses, Linda F has taken the classic five beveled cross and added a background and a border to change it from a suncatcher into  a window.  Made of all clear textured glasses this is certainly stunning but it comes with a price.   You can't easily cut the background points on the ends of each 'limb' of the cross.   The best you can do is cut it closely and then grind down the last half inch or so with the small grinding wheel.   However, the end result is stunning.

 

  

 

 

And Betty is making her own Five Bevel Cross, but after seeing how long it took for Linda to grind out her background for a perfect fit Betty has decided to allow her Cross to remain a Suncatcher.  And there's NOTHING wrong with that because that's exactly how this pattern started its life.

 

 

 

Lastly we look at Ann's next Modern Cross which she completely cut out after soldering the Modern Cross that she completed (and that we saw) at the beginning of this post.   She certainly moves quickly on these.

 

 

So then, e won't be back until after Easter so everyone have a safe holiday and enjoy spending time with your families!

 

Paul

Bayou Salé GlassWorks