STAINED glass allows light to enter a room in mischievous ways, slyly, full of twinkle and spark and flash. Once primarily the province of art-nouveau Tiffany lamps, extravagant cathedral windows or grotty portholes in British pubs, stained glass has in the last decade moved into the suburban home. Hawaii doesn't have as much stained glass in its windows as do mainland communities, however. Glass artist Bill Grix thinks its because "the views are generally so good through Hawaii windows, people prefer to be able to see out."
You can ponder this question while attending the Building Industry Association of Hawaii's "Home Building and Remodeling Show" this weekend, which not only features lots of perfectly clear glass windows, but has stained-glass works as well.
One exhibitor is Annalee Jones of Glass Rainbows. A computer-information wrangler at Alexander & Baldwin, she dabbled in making stained-glass for years, thinking that it might make a nice retirement occupation. But then her employer down-sized, and her hobbyist skills became critical overnight.
By Dennis Oda, Star-Bulletin
Annalee Jones holds up a sheets of glass ready
to be cut up like a jigsaw puzzle.
That was a few years ago, and now she's kept busy with commissions.Grix's WM Grix/Art Glass does a whole range of decorative glass, including etching and sandblasting patterns, mostly for corporate clients.
Kellene Blaine of Kailua not only makes commissions, she runs a class in stained-glass techniques that never runs short of students. All three turned to glass after a background in traditional art techniques and design. For Grix, it was the ability of colored glass to turn light into a magical element that drew him in.
Blaine was an artist who "also worked in construction for four years, and when I put the two together, it just seemed to click."
The glass actually isn't "stained" in the first place. It's colored through and through, and doesn't fade.
Pieces are cut out and ground to fit together exactly, like a jigsaw puzzle. "I encourage people to cut as exactly as possible," said Blaine. "Some people like to cut a quarter-inch away from the edge and then grind down to shape, when it's just as easy to cut it exactly. And, frankly, grinding is the most boring part of making a glass piece."
The pieces are joined together in one of two ways; glazed into a double-grooved strip of lead "came," or copper foiled is crimped on the edges and soldered together. The two methods are so fundamentally different that Blaine offers separate classes in the techniques.
Glass pieces are pinned together before soldering. Tiffany-style lamps are pinned to a kind of foam framework to make the complex shape.
There's a difference between "art glass" and "craft glass," said Blaine. A lot of it is in the execution. "Say you want to do a red rose," said Blaine. "It's not just a matter of cutting out red glass in the shape for a rose. You need highlights, shadows, texture, all suggested by the shapes and tints of the glass.
Almost anything that allows light can be made out of stained glass -- "Can't make a shower door, though!" says Jones -- but the most popular seem to be front windows, the sidelights around front doors and room dividers. All allow light to enter while preserving privacy.
Commissioned works are approached by the craftspeople in similar ways. They visit the home and inspect the place where the piece is to go, noting the patterns of light and color that enter there. They then settle on a design with the homeowner.
By Dennis Oda, Star-Bulletin
Kellene Blaine shows a stained glass panel that
was made using a copper foil technique.
"Sometime they know exactly what they want; other times they have a general idea or theme; sometimes they have no idea at all and we go through samples looking for something that appeals to them," said Jones.Designs vary wildly, but the most popular themes here are natural, "Hawaiian flowers and things like that," said Jones.
Jones' favorite parts of doing stained glass is the initial design and the final installation. "Everything in between is work," she laughs.
A commissioned piece is priced according to size and complexity. A window piece about two-and-a-half feet square can easily run $500, while a door sidelight can be a couple of thousand dollars.
Blaine's classes are $125 for the copper-foil technique, $145 for the lead-came technique, plus a couple of hundred dollars for materials and tools. "And you'll end up with a glass piece two-and-a-half feet square worth about $400 or $500, that you designed yourself," said Blaine. Classes typically take six weeks to complete, and students "come from every walk of life and all ages."
Jones recommends polishing the glass once or twice a year; Blaine suggests using a brush to clean the glass, "instead of the traditional Windex and paper towels, which can cause a bigger mess than you've already got. And never expose the copper-foil window to the elements; copper oxidizes and can weaken."
They suggest leaving the original clear window in place and hanging the stained-glass piece behind it. "One of the real changes in the last decade or so has been individual hanging stained-glass works, instead of having them installed," said Blaine. "It's because people move more; they want to take their artwork with them when they leave."
Another reason, said Grix, are community associations that won't allow changes to the house's exterior. "Hanging the stained glass inside the exterior glass gets around that," said Grix.
The facts
What: BIA Home Building and Remodeling Show
