if winter days have too much gloom, glass day lilies are always in bloom…
What’s as much a staple of early summer as irises are of May? Day lilies, which come in about as wide a choice of colors too. In my old artist life in Vermont at the roadside garden gallery we had rows of nearly all orange ones, with a few scarlet ones mixed in. Could it be that this is due to much of the garden being built in the 1970s?
One of my better early 1990s watercolor experiments was likewise, in the form of a gilded handmade card, and later these windows. Though their motivation was more commercial I felt no loss of creativity. My only boundaries were to keep the designs within common window sizes that their potential customers might have in their homes.
I used a combination of handblown glass (mostly the background) and machine rolled glass (subject), which might be considered as unorthodox by some glass artists. Often I like to sprinkle frit (glass powder) onto individual “puzzle pieces” and fire in the small details, but I didn’t need to this time. I had some textured orange “pool table lamp glass” laying around my studio which made the blossoms stand out just how I wanted.
original “study” for future stained glass lilies, pencil and watercolors with gold leaf, 7″X10″, July 1994
large lily panel, stained glass, 22″X22″, April 2009
small lily panel (one of a pair), stained glass, 12″X48″, April 2009
FIVE DOLLAR FUSED GLASS FUNZIES SALE STILL GOING ON
Glass sugar maple leaves that didn’t quite make it to target color shades and textures, but still beautiful.
Happening now at Rose City Book Pub.
Located at:
1329 NE Fremont Street, Portland, OR 97212 Open noon to 10PM every day.
