Busy July and August

Well July is hot but it is real hot at the studio. We have been working on Signs, Fences, Bars, Sculptures and a few Window hanging pieces. There is so much going on i was thinking i might need a project manager. It is funny how when you are so busy all you want to do is focus on one thing and let the others just fall away. I wish i had taken a photo of every thing layed out in the neighboring yard so i could put the final touches on them. Crazy i say, oh well maybe i will get some photos tomorrow when i finally start to install these things.

mail boxes

Sometimes i make things that just challenge me. Lights are always a challenge and are usually my favorite things to think of to make. Recently i have gotten more tasks of mailboxes. These are fun to make only because of the factors that they are subject to. Daily usage, weather and asthetics are only part of the problems that face anyone designing mailboxes. So i decided to work on a few different ones keeping in mind these things.

The first "mailbox" i did was for the late Peter Costello. As he would say he "bloody love it!". It incorporated the use of glass and metal for a functional art piece. He loved the one i did next door and after we talked i decided he needed a mailbox in the piece so it starts.

For the one i did at 1442 Battery i needed to focus on the fact it sat right on the wall with no roof over it to protect it from the elements. I also brought in the fact that they get big catalogs and needed a light also. Now this all happened because they wanted a transom not a mailbox and look what they got a transom, a light, house numbers, a mailbox and a great exterior sculpture. It is not very often that you get all that in one "package".

Now i am doing parts of the pieces narrowing the focus on the mailbox and numbers. With 3015 i wanted to elongate the wall and grab attention to the numbers so that when guests come over they can find the house fast. Oh and i can never be satisfied with a design until i mess with our need to conform. i made the mailbox pull out from the side and hinge on one side thus folding it into the long shape of it. Not a big box but man is it cool when you pull it open.

I am working on some other mail boxes so lets see what they look like.

what is new in Hampden's whollyterra

To start i have to say i am a terrible internet user so here we go.

I started doing stained glass when i was in ninth grade i am 37 this month so to say i have been doing glass work for a while is kind of an understatement. With half of my life doing glass i seem to find more things to do that are new using. Now i do like to go back to the roots of it all with the copper foil method and soldering. There is something fun about cutting glass fitting it and then connecting them using solder. All these "hard" materials combining to make something that is really fluid and fluid in the way i put them together and how they join.

I have been in Hampden for now 10 years and i have been at my 3406 chestnut avenue space for almost 8 years. This neighborhood has never been the same since.

One of my favorite stained glass transoms i have done around baltimore is the one at 2619 Eastern avenue. This one has red and orange circles dancing through the transom space. I think this is a favorite only because i get the most comments on it. Each one of the pieces i make is a new favorite and is an individual piece each to its own. 455 24th street is one of my newer ones using the circle design that floats circles of color and size through a whimsy layout. I took this to a whole new level when i started putting the glass in a steel structure which can be floated over a wall space. Like the first one that i did this way on 3446 chestnut avenue just up the street from my studio gallery space.

Lets see where i can take this new way of creating pieces can go, watch for the next entry.