Forever House #24

Saturday 24th August, 2013

first finished photo in the lounge room at home by lamp

Hello Currawinya - it's a warm 6pm here by lamplight as the last of the red orange sky lays halo-like above the black hills in the view from the caravan table. I came out a day late this weekend so that I could spend Friday completing the dunny window. I couldn't bear to come out again without it. If all my projects drag out as long as that window - first mentioned here back in Forever House #16 on the 16th June - then time is a problem! I've got fifty eight weeks till the housewarming on the long weekend in October 2014. There are about 100 pieces in this window and mostly curved shapes which are more time consuming to make - most curved pieces need grinding after they have been cut to remove sharp bits and it helps them to fit together more snugly in the finished product. I used glass beads for the flowers too which added a bit of time.

during the cutting process

more cutting on Pop's light box

As the foiling progresses

The Light Box I use to light the design and the glass for cutting was made for me by my Grandfather George a long time ago.  I started making glass when I was about twenty four - I'm now fifty four. I started with Paddy Robinson, an Irish artist working out of Balmain. She also taught stained glass at the Nepean College of Advanced Education in Penrith - and once I had been bitten by the bug I enrolled in that art course with Stained Glass as my major. I did about a year - sadly not finishing the course due to working full time at night and the distance to drive from inner city Sydney to Penrith each day while tired became a bit death defying. There was so much more to learn - but what I did learn has held me in good enough stead to create what I have wanted since.
I have been using copper foil as my preferred medium rather than lead for all these years. I have moved around a lot and needed my glass habit to be portable and able to be set up pretty much anywhere. At my previous abode I used to do it on the outdoor table on the verandah. In other houses I have used a garden shed or a table in the garden. Copper foil is used for smaller pieces such as lamp shades and small fine windows. These days I have a wonderful shed dedicated to stained glass or whatever creative projects I am working on - and I do have some big windows to do for our house at Tuckurimba - so I will try my hand at lead again in the not too distant future.

Installed in the dunny - the textured green glass at bottom is very old - a gift from Leyla

view from the outside

I parked the car on arrival at the farm around 2pm and headed straight to the dunny with the window, timber moulding, saw, hammer, nails and measuring tape. The window fit by the skin of its teeth - I gave the timber frame around the window opening a good bash with the hammer to gain an extra millimetre here and there and now the window is in - with the moulding painted green to match the frame. Very happy. Probably a bit of overkill for a dunny window in the middle of the bush which gets used by few, irregularly - but I know at least I will get pleasure each time I visit that wee room, for more than the obvious reason.

foil, solder and flux cost $86AUD delivered

I was shocked at the price of the soldering materials I bought on line from Brisbane and received by post. The three items cost me $86AUD - and the foil and solder were pretty much all used up on this one window! So with all the glass projects I have in front of me I will be paying out some bucks. Luckily, I have pretty much the bulk of the glass I'll need, having bought on ebay about six years ago, a whole lot of blue, pink and yellow which had been salvaged from a church in Victoria. The lovely man boxed up all the glass pieces, which are various sized rectangles, still with a bit of putty around the edges. And serendipity deemed that my friends Wendy and Andrew were doing a road trip to Tasmania at that time, and they very kindly transported the boxes home from Melbourne for me - all the way to the Far North Coast of New South Wales. I now just buy whatever other colours I need. I guess most glass I will use in the forever house and for our extension here at home will incorporate lots of pink, yellow, blue and clear textured glass that comes out of the old windows and doors I am renovating. Waste not want not.