Vitreosity

Silver Stain Roundels

Ah, the wonderful world of the stained glass roundel, painted scenes on clear glass with yellow silver stain as the only color.

A roundel depicting theTemptation of St. Anthony. German, possibly Swabia, 1532.

from a Cloisters flickr set by 'isefire' of a trip to The Cloisters which includes images of more than a dozen of these types of roundels. If you like that, try a general search on Flickr for 'Cloisters stained glass'. Well worth a browse.

and a closer view -

Some additional info on the phenomenon of the silver stain roundel can be seen here - Netherlandish Roundels at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

If you are interested in more specific technical information about silver stain, check out this article by Cliff Oster on The Making of Ancient Walpole Silver Stain" (pdf), from The British Society of Master Glass Painters; and then this article on Glass Colouring from the Institute for Historic Building Conservation; and finally, you can download a highly technical article called The colour of silver stained glass—analytical investigations carried out with XRF, SEM/EDX, TEM, and IBA (pdf), from the Journal of Analytical Atomic Spectrometry.

Nancy's on a roll

Many, many new images at Nancy Nicholson's website. It's nice to see a stained glass artist who is busy creating new work and who still manages to keep their website current. I know that she completed a Chattanooga commission just a few weeks ago and the panels are already up on her commissions page.

I love the painted foliage... and I like how the decorative exterior surrounds the center scene featuring her specialty - the stained glass cityscape

I've known Nancy as a friend and colleague for some 22 years, but I've known her work for even longer and it just keeps getting better and better. Bravo!

Judith Schaechter at Claire Oliver

New work by Judith Schaechter, her usual amazing mixture of dazzling and disturbing images in stained glass, is on display in a gallery exhibition at the Claire Oliver Gallery, In NYC - on exhibit through November 10th.

Make sure to check out the online image gallery. I hope it remains online after the exhibit closes as it features both panels and preliminary figure sketches for those panels. Very nice work and a unique chance to see the sketches with the panels.

Call for Papers x2

The deadlines for two 'Call for Papers' are coming up soon for glass art conferences -

American Glass Guild Conference Call for Papers.
Philadelphia, PA - August 1-4, 2008
deadline - November 1, 2007

The AGG is still the new kid on the block in terms of glass associations and it's good to see them reaching out. I think this is the first time they've done a call for papers.

Glass Art Society Conference Call for Presentation Proposals
Corning, NY - June 11-14, 2009
deadline - December 1, 2007

The GAS conferences held in Corning are always 'the big ones' - more artists, more companies, more stuff in general - and this is the one conference location where the lectures and demonstrations are within walking distance of each other. It would be nice to have some flat glass artists represented in both lectures and demos at this one. The 18 month lead time can be strange to contemplate, but it's well worth it if you get in. I did a demo at the 2006 conference, and I have an idea for a panel I'd like to put together for the 2009 conference...