New Window / May 16, 2022 by Sasha Ward

Left, window before the stained glass. Right, melting glass in the kiln.

I have just installed a new window, the first one that uses the slab glass that I’ve been melting down in my kiln (above right). I’d put some of the pieces too close together so that they touched and fused together during the firing. These pieces happened to be the same combination of colours, peach and pale yellow, and when I put them next to each other they made a slightly butterflyish pair which became the basis for the new window design (below). From there, the window practically designed itself, the different sized and coloured pieces are arranged so they look as if they float up to the top.

Window design - Left, arranging the glass. Right, glass laid on top of the design.

Left, background pieces cut. Right, background pieces sandblasted.

The background is a blue green enamel, the colour of the edges of float glass, which I sandblasted off to create a halo around each coloured slab (above right). I then painted an approximation of each glass slab colour in enamel around each piece and in a ring over the blue green background (below), you get some unexpected results where the two colours of enamel overlap.

Details from top and bottom showing background pieces painted and fired.

The new window (still without a title) looks good in its space, and according to its owner, as if it had always been there. People have said they are reminded of pairs of glasses, but as you can see in the detail below, the slabs are opaque and textured often with a block in the centre that is a record of the size of the original slab. The backgrounds are transparent, apart from the top which I’ve sandblasted to hide the eaves and the centre piece which covers the glazing bar - a feature of the original window which bothered me, but which has now become a vital part of the design.

intersections / April 8, 2022 by Sasha Ward

Thick slabs of coloured glass on the lightbox

I’ve been using melted glass slabs for a commission - still in progress - in a gorgeous colour range. Working to commission is always slow, so in the meantime I decided to make a spontaneous smaller panel using the spare slabs. It’s very simple, four colours that look great together, the intersections of the slabs cut off and filled with another colour that is close to what I imagined the combined glass colour could be (below left). I had intended to give it a contrasting pale blue background, but then chickened out as I didn’t want to ruin the colour balance I’d achieved so used a clear textured glass instead. You can see this during the cementing process (below right) and in daylight with the lawn behind (lower right). I did also cut a background in swirling bright blue glass to check the effect (lower right). The panel measures 315 x 285 mm.

As I’m not keen on wasting glass, I used those background blues to make an alternative composition, here the darkest area is the background and the intersections are in clear glass. It’s more about textures than colours, using up the last scraps of my favourite pressed glass that’s covered in little reflective triangles and some painted pieces with intersecting circles that have been wheel cut and filled with blue enamel. The photos (clockwise from top left) show the glass pieces cut and on the lightbox, the composition with a clear background just to see, the finished panel in daylight (with the lawn behind) and my favourite photo, showing the centre detail cleaned and ready for soldering.

It still bothered me that I hadn’t carried out my original intention, so I found small leftovers of the original four colours and fitted them together with a contrasting pale blue background and a little yellow halo around the glass flower (below).