More Accolades!
So many windows are about to be finished here that it’s just amazing.
Tommy got all three of his borders cut while he was in and then we got them all wrapped and tacked together. After we added a brass channel to the outside edge of his LSU window we gave Tommy a quick refresher course on soldering and let him do a few lines on his own. I don’t think he’s going to have any problem at all with the soldering as he took to it like a fish to water. If he doesn’t get a perfect line on his first pass he manages to get it on the second pass over it. He only had a chance to do a few lines but from what I’ve seen I’m confident that he will have this finished next week. Tommy’s window has a clear textured glass for the background but in the picture below it’s sitting on the work table so it looks kind of strange. Those aren’t cracks you’re seeing, they are just random markings of the well-used surface of the work table that his window is laying on.
Mark spent some time tonight trying to pick out the perfect border for his window. After trying about 12 different pieces we all decided that the glass that looked oddest in the rack looked best surrounding his window. It’s a green/pink combination glass that adds just the right amount of color to make this window really stand out. Like Tommy, Mark is now to the point where he will be soldering next week. He’s got a lot of lead lines to go before this one is finished so I’m going to guess that although he’ll get at least one side completed he won’t have the time to get his window finished next week. I think his border choice was perfect and can’t wait to see this hanging and completed 2 weeks from now.
Fran got her border all wrapped and tacked onto her window this week and then we added the brass channel along the edges and sat her down to solder. Everyone seems to be afraid of the soldering process and Fran herself said that she was no exception. But the fears she had were all for naught because her soldering is MUCH better than the average first time solderer. We walked her through a few lines and then left her on her own so she could practice without someone watching over her shoulder making her nervous. When I walked back over to see how she was doing I was happy to discover that she’s one of the few people who are able to solder wonderfully right from the start. It won’t be long before I won’t have to touch up anything on her windows at all…
Let’s see who else needed a border put on a window this week. How about Gerald? 
He came in and laid out all the pieces he’d wrapped while at home and then tacked it all together. He went for a pure black border which ended up being perfect as you can see from the picture below. He’s making this window with colors that look great without having any light shining through it because when this is finished it will be hanging on a wall rather than in a window. Now that it’s almost completed (he only has a few lead lines left to go) I can say that it turned out even better than I thought it would– and I had VERY high expectations for this window! The second picture posted here is a closeup of the eye of one of the Pelicans. Gerald found little beads at a store that worked PERFECTLY for the eyes of both Pelicans. Make sure you click on the closeup picture to see what a great find these beads were.
Are you tired about hearing how our students just needed to have a border put on their window this week? I hope not because Jane was at the exact same place with the window she made last week while she was at home. Again, she walked in the door with a window that was completely cut, ground, wrapped, tacked and even fully soldered! She did all the work on her own while at home and only stopped at the border because she was a little unsure about the choice of a border color and wanted some input as to what everyone else would think she should use. She brought in what she refers to as her standard border color: Blue. But in the end we all agreed that going with a white border was the better choice. Click on her picture below and you’ll see what we mean. Also, pay attention the the yellow piece of background glass on the center of the far right side of the window. It’s a very difficult piece to cut and solder without having it break and although she was intimidated by it at first, she decided to tackle it herself and got it out in one piece! It’s yet another job well done by Jane.
Ellen spent her time working at the grinder this week. She has most of the pieces cut for her lamp and is now grinding them down before she wraps them. I helped her grind only a few of her pieces but I have to say that it was easy going. Her rounded edges are already round before she even shapes them with the grinder, and her cutting is so good that all she really needs to do is skim each piece. The problem with making a lamp is that you don’t get a chance to fit everything together as you go along. You grind all your pieces, wrap them and then when it’s all wrapped you assemble it onto the mold with either double sided tape or wax (which is what Ellen will be using for a lamp with this many pieces in it.) If your cutting isn’t exact then you’ll have to unwrap pieces, grind them again and then re-wrap them. It’s a tedious process and it’s why we don’t let students make lamps until we see that their glass cutting abilities are better than average. We have a picture of what Ellen managed to grind this week but remember that these are stacked 3 deep so there are three times as many pieces as you can see here.
We’re going to wrap up this weeks Blog entry talking about Jessie’s progress with both her current project and two of the windows that she’s finished in the past. Jessie worked on her Owl window and managed to finish cutting the remaining feathers in the owl. When that part was completed we concentrated on getting her background cut out. She had picked a deep Spectrum Purple that we only had one piece of and when she traced out her pieces onto the glass we knew that if she broke even one little piece we wouldn’t have enough to finish her panel. I helped cut some of the more complex cuts in the hopes that I’d be able to get them out without breaking anything and together we managed to get it all cut. Jessie moved over to the grinder at that point and began to get all that she has cut fitted together.
You’d think we’d be moving on to someone else or ending this now that we’ve finished talking about Jessie’s latest window but we have some great news about two of her older projects that we’d like to share with you. We got a phone call from Jessie’s mother telling us that the Horse Window that Jessie finished just 2 weeks ago took 2nd place at the L’Acadian Art Guild Contest! You might think that Jessie could be disappointed that she didn’t get first place but that’s not the case at all because her Ballerina Window won 1st place! So when she brought her ribbons into class this week we had to take pictures of them to post here along side her winning windows. While Jessie was telling us her story about winning both 1st and 2nd place she also informed us that her mother got a 3rd place ribbon for her beveled window that she made here in class last summer. I guess it goes to show you that our students don’t just play around while they are working in class. Here are the pictures of our winning windows!
That about takes care of this weeks classes. We missed Cheryl and Joey this week and the place just wasn’t the same without them. But we’ll see them again next week and catch up on what they’ve been doing both at home and here in class.
Paul
Bayou Salé GlassWorks