Sage House Glass

Category: Commissions

  • Upcoming Glass Art Commissions and Personal Projects

    Upcoming Glass Art Commissions and Personal Projects

    It’s been a very long summer! A summer I’m incredibly grateful for, but also still recovering from. I’m the kind of exhausted that’s bone deep. And I don’t anticipate the exhaustion to go away anytime soon–which is another thing I’m grateful for, but hopefully more to come on that in the future.

    In regards to glass, I’ve been working on several projects at once, all with some pretty intense deadlines.

    • Fall Drop at Minkology by September 10th, including pumpkins, autumn leaves, ghosties and lightning bugs.
    • A full stock of celestial and fantasy items for the Moonfire Realms Renn Faire happening September 26th at Rubicon Farm, NC. Check it out!
    • Several personal close-to-the-heart commissions for family members, including birth flowers, suns, poppies and more; some were completed in early July and others in the planning stage for late September.
    • And one really elaborate post-card reproduction of the Hotel del Coronado for my brother and his wife by August 30th. This one’s a secret! And I’m cutting it close.

    The Hotel del Coronado project deserves its own post, so I’ll save the bulk of that adventure for next week. I’m past the cutting and grinding at this point, so we’re onto wrapping these truly infinitesimally small pieces, that I designed because I’m a sadist. I might also be one of those people that’s like, “Eh, I’ll make it work.” Confidence or laziness? Both are the father of invention.

    I’m looking forward to producing gifts for friends and family in the season to come. I want to pull back a bit on crafting for production and instead focus on the really personal touches commissions can make. It means so much to me that people trust me to replicate or translate something special to them into glass, whether it’s a memory, tribute or totem. I’m honored, and I take every commission with that level of gravity.

    But that’s commissions–sometimes I get to go really crazy and try new things when I’m making fun gifts for family members, so my brother’s Coronado piece is going to be the height of creativity and a total deluge of trial and error. Fun, light-hearted, and totally unserious. I hope he’ll love it!

    Check in next week if you’re interested to see the entire artistic process behind bringing a classic Californian landmark into colorful glass.

  • Florals for Summer? Groundbreaking

    Florals for Summer? Groundbreaking

    June & July months are so incredibly freaking hot in the south. I’ve barely been able to work in my garage because the heat dome is too intense–we’re working on getting air conditioning in there, but in the mean time, we’re sweating. Sometimes I’ll be in my little stained glass corner grinding glass pieces while my husband is doing wood working on the other side of the garage. When we take off our PPE we look like victims of drowning.

    This June, I did have the pleasure of making another commission for a good friend out in California. She was hoping for a floral piece, possibly a tulip or a rose, for her friend who loves to garden. I wanted to create a medallion shape; a folklore feel, a bucolic aesthetic. So I reached out onto the web and found Dutch tulip florals and medieval roses, using those as inspiration for a new line of oval medallion suncatchers.

    I sent the commission, but I couldn’t stop making the florals. I’m up to my nose in little tiny pieces of flowers. At this point, I’ve designed tulips, roses, poppies (couldn’t help myself) and peonies. The peony is a little outside my wheelhouse, but I’m doing my best with all the tiny little petals.

    The color combinations are reminding me so much of the Disney princesses that I’m referring to colorways as specifically princess-inspired. So far I’ve got the Belle, the Aurora, the Pocahontas, and the Tiana. Elsa, Anna and Ariel to come! Below is a small preview of just Belle & Aurora, but I’m looking forward to having time next week for a real photo shoot for the other colorways.

    I never know when a commission is going to help me grow in another direction! I love florals, plants and gardens, so this flows incredibly well with everything else I love to make. Cheers to a whole new floral category in my store front–coming soon!

  • May Commissions

    May Commissions

    I had the honor of making some birthday and mother’s day gifts for May Commissions. Of course, my mom got a Monstera leaf for mother’s day because she’s my #1 fan.

    One of my mom’s besties growing up commissioned a sunflower for her niece’s birthday. I love hearing a little bit about the person I’m designing and crafting a piece for–it really informs the creativity and helps me design with more intention when I know a little backstory. This commission is going to a busy mother with a house full of love, who doesn’t have a lot of counter space in the kitchen, but loves to cook. She has a beautiful window above her sink and a sun catcher would add some light into her life. She’s especially fond of sunflowers, so I got to design my first sunflower sun-catcher.

    There are plenty of sunflower patterns online but I wanted to draw something that was a little imperfect, slightly askew. Just like all the flowers I design, I prefer to keep the petals off-balance. Flowers in nature are always slightly imperfect and so gorgeously varied. Patterns that are too precise feel more like wallpaper to me. So I started by gathering inspiration online and dove into drawing on my iPad in Procreate. Once I had a design I liked, I picked a color scheme and approved the mock-up with my customer.

    Picking glass is alternately the best and worst part of any design. I’m still learning to listen to my gut reaction when it comes to picking out glass, instead of waffling for hours over what shade of yellow is the perfect sunflower yellow. I selected a pale yellow Florentine glass sourced from Carolina Stained Glass, shout out to Suzie! Great shop with extremely helpful people and reasonable costs.

    Once my customer approved, it was onto cutting, grinding, washing, wrapping, soldering, washing, buffing, washing, patina, washing, buffing, and polishing! I’m extremely pleased with how the copper patina lends to the yellow glass and the kokomo glass center.

    It’s headed to California and I’ll be making a few TikToks and Instagram Reels from the soldering and patina process. Stay tuned!

  • June Commissions & Happy Pride!

    June Commissions & Happy Pride!

    I absolutely love the way that summer announces itself in a wash of rainbows.

    My first commission for June is a perfect Pride coincidence. My sister and I were working at a market back in March when the patron “C” and their partner approached my booth. They loved the sunshine arch panels I was selling, but gave me the best feedback in the world: “Where’s the purple in your rainbow arches? If there was purple in there, that would be Pride. I would’ve bought them in a snap.” It was a brilliant critique–I hadn’t even realized my sunshine panels didn’t include a crucial color of the rainbow–violet. As a supporter of the alphabet mafia, but not a card carrying member, feedback like that was so helpful.

    C reached out to me on Instagram to commission a pair of sunshine arch panels with all the colors of the pride flag. We went through several iterations where the sun was drawn with a half smile, but realized it was too busy. The simple lines of the original sunshine arch paid homage to the textured glass, so we kept it clean.

    After a few weeks of conversation, and a delayed start from me–life can really get in the way of art, right?–the rainbow panels are polished and ready to head home with C. Here comes the sun, just in time for Summer storms. Below are a few more images of the set before I wrap them up for the journey.

    As June winds down, I’ll be adding several pieces to a storefront in Asheboro, North Carolina, called Minkology. I’ve been working to create a Summer-inspired collection for the storefront, all butterflies and flowers in pastels. I’m very eager to do a write up about that process, so more to come about that. I’m so excited to one day walk down the street and see a piece of mine hanging in the windows of a store–that’s truly the dream!

    I’m also looking forward to July commissions–I’ll be designing some new pieces and working outside my comfort zone with new soldering techniques. I’m working on a pair of Romantasy-inspired bookends for a patron’s birthday. I’ll possibly be repairing a sentimental set of glass pieces for another lovely person I met at a market. More to come on those commissions! And if you’re interested in a commission from me, please reach out via the website or my Instagram and we’ll get it on the books.

    Happy Pride, everyone! And happy summer break, to those who have kids out of school. As a children’s librarian by day, this is our busy season, so please be kind to your local librarians–we’re in the trenches!