Stained Glass

This was my first stained glass project years ago.

One of my mentors in radiology, an eccentric genius to say the least, was also an accomplished stained glass artist and his office was lined with great panels and lamp shades.  He was so prolific he drove his wife crazy making untold numbers of lamp shades that were stacked in the corners of every room in their house as well.  He would change the shades of lamps every few days just to rotate them around and would give them to coworkers and friends just to get them out of his way so that he would have room to make more.

He could put out stained glass projects like lightning.   I wish I was as fast at the work as he was, but for me the process is slow and extremely time consuming, but rewarding in the end.

One day while I was still in training I went to his office and said, "Ok you've taught me radiology for a few years now, when are you going to show me how to do stained glass?"  He told me to come to his house on Saturday and he could show me all I needed to know.

Saturday morning I showed up and he gave me a quick tour of his numerous  stacks of stained glass lamp shades, all glorious in there own way.  Then we went to his garage where he had a small table set up as a shop.   He didn't do anything that wasn't fast.  Within about 30 minutes he had shown me how to handle and cut glass, told me to buy a beginners book, and said, "You're ready.  You know all you need.  Now go and get a pattern and let me see if it will be ok for you to start."

I love art and drawing and the beginner patterns were rather simple so I drew up what I thought I would like for a glass panel and took it to his office a few days later.  He took one look and told me he liked the drawing but thought it was way too complicated for my first ever stained glass project.  I told him,"I may never get a chance to do this again so I want to spend my time making something worthwhile."

Anyway as I said in a previous post I spent the next weekend learning how not to handle stain glass, getting hundreds of tiny micro cuts on all of my finger tips.  My wife saw all the blood when I came in from the garage and wondered what kind of self mutilating sport I had begun.

Finally on the next project I figured out that if you put masking tape on your fingers and dip your fingers in water it creates a good barrier to prevent most of those small painful cuts on the fingertips.   Over time the fingertips will toughen up and be more resistant, which makes the hobby a lot more enjoyable.

I don't get to finish many of these projects these days but when I do it provides a great deal of satisfaction.

Happy STEEMing!

@ohicklin