Windows & Transoms

Dining Room Lavender Fields with House – La Cañada

Inspiration can come from anywhere…including a Kleenex box!

The client wanted a beautiful scene for the dining room that would hide the household’s large trash cans, which were situated just outside of the windows. They still wanted to have light enter through the upper smaller rectangles of the windows so finding just the right image for the leaded windows was critical.

After some time had passed, the client called one day excited that they had finally found the composition that they wanted for the windows. At our meeting, the client triumphantly presented a Kleenex box, showing the art on the side of the box and said, “This is the landscape scene we want for our windows.” After studying the side of the box for a while, three things stood out as important elements that we would need to resolve to give the client the quality landscape design they wanted.

First, the lavender fields required a level of detail that standard leaded glass cannot achieve, so the amber glass for the fields was fused with lavender-colored frit to produce the rows of lavender. The cut pieces of amber glass were placed together as the frit was applied in order to be sure that the perspective of the scene would show correctly to someone standing at the center of the room.

Secondly, the Kleenex box had a farmhouse as part of the scene but that farmhouse did not reflect anything special to the client. Therefore, to personalize the scene, the front exterior of their house in La Cañada was used instead. To minimize lead lines in the house, the window and door glass were fused to the cream-colored glass. People visiting the client were able to note that the house in the leaded glass panel was an image of their house.

Third, the sky also needed to stand out. As a result, the glass is cut without lead lines breaking up the color patterns in the glass. This gives a more realistic and tranquil feel to the scene. And now the trash cans are no longer visible.

Glendale – The Lonesome Pine

The author of this very inspiring children’s book asked if we could create a stained glass window that depicted the cover of her book so she could hang it as a sun catcher in her home. We took the challenge straight-on and produced an intricate work with delicate difficult lettering and wrapped it in a wood frame. When working with a composition that comes from a painting or drawing, one of the difficulties is figuring out how to use the lead lines to help develop the picture without ruining the image with lead lines. This balance was artfully achieved with the project.