Last night I had the pleasure of speaking with a group of lovely people from a nearby church about stained glass. They are considering making panels for their doors and we were going over the basic first steps of what needed to happen before you cut your first piece of glass.
Stained glass is something that is lacking in our lovely 1870. There are six single pieces in the little rectangles on the big wooded doors that come in to the sanctuary, but the large arched windows are just clear glass.
From the moment I set foot in this church I knew that there would be a day when all the walls, ceilings, floors, rooms that needed a makeover and things like plumbing and wiring were finished, that I could unpack my stained glass studio here. Last night talking about the stained glass, I got the real urge to drive straight to my garage in Middletown and load it all up, but I waited.
Instead this morning I started planning my panels. I'm going to be making three separate panels for each of the four windows that are getting stained glass. One for each season of the year.
The first will depend on what season we are in when I start creating them. If it's winter, I'll start with cobalt blue skies surrounding beautiful white birch trees with some snow falling and maybe a bright red cardinal. If it's spring, I'll start with pale blue skies, maybe a lilac bush or a robin's nest on a budding tree. Summer will see a bright blue sky with lots of green leaves and some roses in the bottom panel. And as for the season we are just heading in to, Autumn, it will see golden leaves, orange leaves, burnt red leaves and a strong forest of trees that are shedding them all. Perhaps an owl will sit in one of those trees.
But today I'll paint. I'm working on clouds and their detail on the stage in one of the lovely arches. My mind will be wandering though, to stained glass and copper foil and putting together the puzzle pieces that will be soldered to shine for a long time in one of these glorious windows at our beautiful 1870.