ALMOST DONE!!!!

Here are images of the top left and right panels all the way through almost completing them. The entire window will be done...tomorrow!!!! I will post pictures Monday or Tuesday of the finished work. Dominic Episcopo, my photographer, comes Monday. After this window is done there are three more very small piece left to make for the Eastern State Penitentiary project. It is scheduled to be completely installed by the end of March!!
Above is the cartoon on the light table. As always, click to enlarge the images.

Here is the piece with the initial glass cut out.

Sandblasted glass.

First layer of paint.

Sandblasted, first layer of paint fired on, then the glass is engraved, and the second layer of paint is added.

some details

Working on the second layer

Some details of how sections look completed

What the right hand top part look like

What the right hand top part look like

Drowning

Stevie Smith - Not Waving But Drowning

Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.

Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he's dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
They said.

Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning.


Technical: The piece was made with the lost wax process and kiln cast glass. I worked with artist and master caster and friend Steven R. Easton . When I had a good cast, I proceeded to work the surface myself to create more detail an, ultimately to create the surface texture.
I had help from the following people as well and big thanks goes to them as well!
Gus Actis (Mold maker, waxes)
David King (Cold working, Philly)
John Laustsen (Cold Working, Providence)
and also...

Theo Kropf (Cold Working, Providence)
Drew Smith (initial cast test)

Click to show the rest of post

This is my first cast glass sculpture—my first “real” sculpture. I have tried many, many times in the past—gaining no real purchase on the methods or process. Once again, it takes glass itself to bring out my voice. What is it about glass? Is it its resistance and strength? Glass is tough to work with—it could not be more different than flesh in terms of resistance and structure! And yet, it is sensitive, responsive, emotional.
As I worked, I couldn’t get over the feeling that, hidden in the material, are characters waiting to be revealed, bodies seeking release and faces yearning for expression.

As I worked on the piece I had the sensation of synesthesia—drawing the diamond tool and the polishing bits down the length of the neck felt like caressing flesh. I had an overwhelming sense of the softness, the smoothness and undulation of tendon, bone, and muscle; a sense that the arch of the neck, the curve of the lips and the bulge of the eyelids constrained a real life force.

The Stevie Smith poem speaks of the futility of connection—we see a far off hand...and misunderstand, or perhaps understand all too well.
The idea of “Drowning” was an attempt to depict birth, life and death simultaneously. I wanted to show the struggle of emergence or birth from some type of watery protoplasm into true form—a narrative that is, perhaps, a metaphor for the artistic process—wherein form rises from the subconscious to become manifest and then to return again to the depths of another’s, (the viewer’s) subconscious. Something the poem does efficiently and to great effect.

Is this person being born or dying? The expression of ecstasy is so...open to interpretation as it connotes the dissolving of the soul into inspiration, or in orgasm or in the throes of death. It could be waving, it could be drowning.

Its solder time!

Hey peoples!
I decided to solder what's ready this past week. Why do this before the entire window is done? Because thinking about it was making me squirrely. Because my studio is small and I was starting to have storage management issues. Because it was there.

How do I solder? Let me give you a tip. Use a BIG TIP! Like a Hexacon 250 watt flamethrowing baseball bat. AKA: "The Pursuader". And NO, it is not too expensive. Nothing else will do. Seriously.

I work using copperfoil technique--or "Tiffany". For all you in the industry, I am not going to get into some argument defending the pros and cons of this. For all you people not in the industry let me tell you this technique is the cause of much "controversy" as it is less than a thousand years old and thus, and as a newbie, has yet to prove its value technically and artistically. Such is the curse of being invented post 1000 AD . (that link is to the oldest stained glass fragments known, fyi) ........SIGH........I will also say, my windows, being intensively layered, could not be achieved any other way.

Hexacon 250 Watt Soldering Iron

OK--so I put down the cartoon. Then I lay down the glass. Yes. 2nd grade Jigsaw puzzle skill are helpful.

The laying down of the glass

Then I tack solder the joints so the pieces stay put.

tack soldering

The smallest piece of glass in the entire monster window it the rope between the two tug-a-war girls.

Then I go in and fill in the lines. Kinda hard to write about soldering techniques!!! The point is to get a super smooooooooth line. One that has some integrity and some oomph to it. It should be rounded, but not chunky. Its ALL about temperature...all about controlling those degrees of hot and cold.

Side one halfway done

Side one done.

When the front is done, I clean it up a bit as it is a slimy, greeeeeeasy mess from the flux and covered with blobs of stray solder. It is not a good idea to handle it filthy, just to have it slide out of your grip!

This is what the cartoon looks like with flux gunk on it. I toss this in the trash.

Then I do the other side--which is much easier as it is usually still warm and also the gaps are filled.

ME! As photographed by Ms Fidget! with whom I had the honor of lunch the other day. Where did we eat? WHERE ELSE???

close to done with this section!

After the second paint firing

latest noose

Here's how the lower right hand panel is looking, so far. At the stage depicted above, the glass has been painted with one firing of black paint and I am in the process of engraving and filing the highlights.

detail of lower left

A few days ago, I had only cut and sandblasted the glass. I then marked it with a sharpie to indicate some lines to paint on to begin the painting process and to make it simpler to know where to put the highlights.

detail

and here's the mock up!

How it's lookin' now

Apologies for the lack of posting! The end of the semester was a bit...frenetic. Here's the top panel for the big window finished!

These "lead lines" are faked in photoshop. I am not going to solder the piece until ALL the parts are done. But its so hard to see what's going on without them, so P-shop it is.

Angel versus Devil. I was really pleased with the Devil's teeth.

Horny monks

Late breaking noose in action

What it looks like in context