Stained Glass Express - The Blog / Category_Art & Artists

Marc Chagall, one of the great artists of our time, would have been 132 on July 7 this year. He was born in the Russian Empire and worked with paint and stained glass. But he was a bit of a late bloomer in the stained glass medium -- he did not start working with stained glass until he was in his 70s! One of Chagall’s most beloved works is America Windows at the Art Institute in Chicago. It is believed that Chagall put lots of emotion into his work. There are many famous Chagall quotes, which I think explain a lot about him:

If I create from the heart, nearly everything works; if from the head, almost nothing.

—Marc Chagall

Art seems to me to be, above all, a state of soul.

—Marc Chagall

For me, a stained glass window is a transparent partition between my heart and the heart of the world.

—Marc Chagall

The largest glass and bead expo in America, Glass Craft & Bead Expo, is held every year at the fabulous South Point Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. The event is not on the strip, but you can take a shuttle to the strip, if you wish. If you just want to focus on the show, you do not have to leave the hotel — the facility has everything there you need. There are product exhibits, classes, demos — and my favorite —The Gallery of Excellence. I am showing my favorites below. If you want to see all of the winners for 2019, click here: https://glasscraftexpo.com/gallery-of-excellence.php If you want info on the 2020 Glass Craft & Bead Expo, click here: https://www.glasscraftexpo.com/

Louis Comfort Tiffany was born in New York City to Charles Lewis Tiffany and Harriet Olivia Avery Young. (He died in 1933). He attended Flushing Boarding School in New York City. The Civil war starts in April of 1861 and in 1863, Tiffany attended the Pennsylvania Military Academy, in West Chester, Pennsylvania. It later became the West Chester Military Academy and then the Villa Maria Academy, a Catholic school. Tiffany then went on to Eagleswood Military Academy in Perth Amboy, New Jersey. In July of 1864 Tiffany wins an award for proficiency in drawing while at Eagleswood. The war ends in 18 while Tiffany is at an encampment at Irvington-on-Hudson, New York. In 1866 he is listed as a member of the American Society of Painters in Water Colors. Tiffany studies with a private teacher and was then admitted to the Antique School in the National Academy of Design in New York City in 1866. In 1868 Tiffany travels to Europe and studies with painting and visits the French painter Belly who specializes in orientalist landscapes and Islamic genre scenes. Two years later he has a still life exhibited at the Paris Salon and has an exhibit in the National Academy of Design, New York. After this the exhibits become frequent of his water colors. After extensive travel, Tiffany acquired the property known as Laurelton Hall. Much of this building can be seen at the Morse Museum. FINALLY—IN 1872 Tiffany becomes interested in glass. The first experiments led to the invention of Tiffany’s Favrille Glass. In 1876 Tiffany meets John La Farge who is has glass working studio in New York City. In 1878 Tiffany opens a glass house which burns down as does the second one he opens. Also, in 1878 he made his first church figure window. It is at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Islip, New York. It’s where abouts now is unknown. He continues to work in water color and some oils. He experiments with Wallpaper designs and photography. In 1879 he designs and installed an abstract window in one of his own residences. On November 10, 1879 John La Farge applies for his first patent on opalescent glass. In 1880: A figural window by Louis Comfort Tiffany is installed in the newly consecrated St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Islip, New York. "The windows are of stained glass, but the staining has not been accomplished with common paints. It is altogether a new and novel window, called the opalescent, the glass being stained by a chemical process and burned in. The windows were supplied by L.C. Tiffany, of New York, who also donated a trefoil window - three crosses in a circle resembling a three leafed clover - a perfect gem in itself. The cost of the windows was $2,500. Mr. Hunt takes great pride in the apsis . It is broad, deep and domed and circular in form with three pairs of triplet windows of opalescent glass. In the central window is an exquisite representation of St. Mark and his lion riding in the clouds. This is the only piece of painted glass in the building." (from the Morse Museum) After several jobs decorating interiors, Tiffany starts devoting all his time to artistic house furnishings. Then he submits patents for Glass tile, Mosaic and Colored Glass Windows. "The first important result of labors" in stained glass is claimed by an untitled article to be in a church in Newark, New Jersey. " is in three compartments, with inscriptions on the lower panels. The centre pieces of each compartment simulate Oriental rugs. Of these, one is darker in its hues, to typify the past; the other is light, to represent the future, and the central is pulled aside, to signify the present. Through the opening are seen water and lilies growing. Over the lilies is a dove flying upward to represent the soul of the deceased, and the clouds in the sky, which stretches across the upper part of all three, are arranged in fanciful ladderlike shapes, to carry out further the idea of ascension." (morse museum) In 1881 Tiffany buys two buildings for his glass decorating business in NY. At this point he is getting commissions for people’s homes and churches. He is winning awards at expositions. In 1885 he designs the Flower, Fish and Fruit window which is now in the Baltimore Museum of Art. In 1887 Clara Wolcott Driscoll starts work as a designer at Tiffany Glass Company. Clara ends up doing many lamp designs. The Arrowhead shade. In 1904 Mrs. Driscoll is one of the highest salaried women in New York and ranks with the $10,000 a year workers. In 1889 Harper’s magazine says that Tiffany has brought the art of making opalescent glass to the highest perfection it has yet attained. He is referring to the piece “Christ Leaving the Praetorium” which is in Wisconsin at St. Paul’s Church. At this point they open an entire ecclesiastical department. Tiffany’s first public exhibition of blown glass is in 1893. In 1892 is the first exhibit of glassware and lamps with blown glass shades. 1894 is the first mention of copper-foiling at Tiffany Glass. in 1896 this gentle is at Tiffany’s. I am including it because my last name is also Parkhurst! Henry L. Parkhurst (1867-1921) of the Tiffany Glass and Decorating Company (1892-1900) teaches book cover designing at the New York School of Applied Design for Women. In 1919 Louis Comfort Tiffany retires. He creates a foundation. In February of 1924 the lamp production ceases at Tiffany Studios. January 17, 1933 at the age of 84, Louis Comfort Tiffany dies.

This summer, July/August 2018 Glass Art Magazine did an article on Miriam Di Fiore. Her art jumped right off the page to me. Amazing!

She was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1959 and has lived in Italy since 1980. Her work is in galleries all over the world and teaches all over the world including Corning in New York. Sleeping Seed, 2010

Quince

I have a fondness for bare trees and that might be what has drawn me to her work.

How amazing is this image! This is Miriam preparing the glass rods/stringers that uses for branches and trunks in her landscapes.

She has a series called “Dreams in a Drawer”:

Poplars in March

Brallow Pass

Each year CBS (Coatings By Sandberg) sponsor a contest called “Dichroic by Design” Here are this year’s winners! First Place Karen Pester “Noah’s Arc” Second Place Nathalie Strickland “Butterfly Fish” and “Hatching Turtles” Third Place Laura Dawson “Fish Totem” There are also a few Honorable mentions, which are also wonderful. If you want to see more, you can by following this link: CBS Contest and Winners

I just read an article about an effort to compile the locations that have or did have Tiffany windows. It is a giant challenge but certainly a worthy one. http://www.cambridge2000.com/tiffany/index.html is the web site. It is very well done, and you can look up by city, date, designer, category, status etc. They also give a confidence rating which says how certain the piece is truly a Tiffany Studio piece. For example, Maine has 19 sites and 10 of those sites have something still there! How exciting. Two of those sites are in Augusta, Maine! The South Parish Congregational Church (which I have visited) has had 9 items, 8 of which are still there! (Can you tell how excited I am by the number of exclamation points I am using?) All these photos were taken by Wayne Boucher. These are all on the site that we share the link above. I encourage you to go to the site. My copied (with permission) pictures do not do them justice. If you go to the site you can click on them and they will enlarge. They are nothing short of breath taking! St. Mark’s Episcopal Church has one. This is not an active church and there is not a picture.

Each year the Fallbrook Art Center has a showing of glass. Last year I just happened to be there while it was happening and got to walk through. This is a picture from an e-newsletter I got from them showing this year’s display. This picture caught my eye. I think these are amazing. The artist name was not given but if you are interested email info@fallbrookartcenter.org. For more info and more pictures go to http://www.fallbrookartcenter.org/. You can sign up for their newsletter there also.

I guess it is obvious that our logo includes the Fibonacci spiral. Fibonacci was a person, an Italia mathematician in the late 11^th and 12^th century. In addition to other mathematical achievements, he is given credit for the Fibonacci Sequence. The Sequence is where each number is the sum of the two preceding numbers:

1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34 (and so on)

It may not seem obvious, but there is a strong connection between this sequence and artwork composition. If you look at our logo and visualize each square as a number that increases in size the same as the sequence you have the Fibonacci Spiral. (or our logo). Another connection is what is called the Golden Ratio or the Divine Ratio. Two quantities whose ratio is the same as the sum of the total to the larger ratio. (does your head hurt?) Just think of it as the Rule of Thirds. It is a way of balancing the composition of a picture. Nicer than just centering something. These pictures come from markmitchellpaintings.com

This week I was waiting on customer who wants to do mosaic something that will be outside. When she asked for the correct products, I could not help but think of this situation that was written about in the Fall and Winter 2017 issues Stained Glass magazine. (Info comes from there and an article in Alabama Living.) All I could think of was “make sure it is weather proof!" This amazing piece of art is located at the Huntsville, Alabama First Baptist Church. It took seven years to complete (1966 to 1973) and contained approximately 1.4 millions pieces of Italian tile – none larger than a thumbnail. This mosaic is giant! There are seven bays and each bay is 18’x45’. It is about 5,600 sq ft of mosaic. It made the news because it was falling apart! A team went in to asses the issues. They determined the problems were: Glass tiles were used instead of smalti, (Smalti are ½-1/3 the size of tiles but twice as thick. Smalti do have a beveled edge) the mounting of the tiles to a netting with epoxy was not the best method, the materials used were of dubious quality, the cements used to install the mosaic were not the best choice, and the methods used to apply the cement and mosaic sections were suspect and probably incorrect. Within a year of the installation glass started to fall! 50 years later the team was trying to determine the best way to fix it. The decision was made to remove the entire mosaic and replace it with new. The design was to be reproduced and this time fabricated and installed correctly! The color palette was to remain the same, but it was allow to increased the depth of color and make some minor corrections to the design. This project is still going on. At the time of the Winter issue of Stained Glass bay two was complete and Bay 3 was underway, schedule to be complete by Easter.

All this info comes from the Epilepsy Foundation site and note that the pyramids rights are protected. I never had the privilege of knowing Kevin, but I know his mom, Patricia Barnes, and I have met his delightful brother and I have even helped clean the pyramids! Trish made this incredible collection of pyramids (out of stained glass, of course) after the drowning death of Kevin when he was not quite 17. These pyramids have been donated to the Epilepsy foundation for fundraising for epilepsy research and hopefully new therapies and strategies to improve the life of people living with seizures. Money raised from the sale of the pyramids fund young researchers called “Kevin’s Fellows”.

INFO FROM THE MORSE MUSEUM

This lamp is not only incredibly beautiful and an amazing amount of work, it was turning point for the Tiffany Studios. In 1902, there was an event in Turin, Italy called the Prima Esposizione, Internazionale d’Arte Decorative Moderna. This event put an emphasis on the aesthetic renewal of everyday objects. Tiffany Studios received a grand prize at this event. One of the designs for the award was for the Wisteria Library Lamp. Electricity was now available. Before electricity, the lamp bases had to serve as containers for oil and limited the design. This transformed a previously utilitarian device in an electrified sculpture. Take a close look at the top of the lamp. There is an intricate bronze vine working its way down the design of the lamp. Just beautiful. This shade was designed by Clara Driscoll, who was the supervisor in the Women’s Glass Cutting Department. Follow this link to learn more about Clara Driscoll. http://morsemuseum.org/louis-comfort-tiffany/tiffany-studios-designers. Wisteria has more than 2,000 pieces which, of course, were hand cut. The wisteria was a popular spring blooming vine in the 19^th-century American gardens and loved by Louis Comfort Tiffany. He planted them in abundance at his Long Island estate called Laurelton Hall.

I just love this piece from the Glass Craft and Bead Expo. The women represent Earth, Wind, Fire and Water. I love the symbolism, I love that Bonnie used women (powerful forces of nature), I love the framing, and how “earth” is escaping the frame. It is truly a great piece. In my opinion a FIRST PLACE!