Sage House Glass

Tag: writing

  • 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.

  • The Art of Writing About Art

    The Art of Writing About Art

    I started this blog in conjunction with my stained glass website for a couple of reasons. For one, I just love writing about art and stained glass. I am deeply enthusiastic about promoting artists, describing the stained glass process and ruminating on my inspirations. Writing about the intentions driving my art really helps to remind me of the “why.”

    The “why” is fundamental to art being more than just a “side hustle.” I’m often plagued with the Capricorn tendency to make sure every moment of my day is *productive.* If I’m not doing three things at once, maximizing my time, crossing things off a list–well, then I’m just not reaching my full potential, right? But now that I’m older and possibly wiser, I’m realizing how fast time is flying while I’m multi-tasking my life away. Art can be mindful. Art can help me slow down. Art doesn’t always have to be productive, a business, something to mass produce. It’s valuable on its own. The act of making is valuable.

    The act of writing about making–that’s valuable too, for me. Often I can find myself creating with abandon and focusing so much on the end result that I’m not taking the time to enjoy the process. Being mindful of my “why” can slow down the pace of what I’m doing and help me to learn more about myself in the process. Why do I favor these colors, this texture, that shape? What mood am I trying to evoke for someone else viewing the piece? What does my art remind me of, why is it comforting to me, what memory does it touch in the back of my mind?

    I’ve also learned that if something doesn’t exist on the internet that you wish existed on the internet, then maybe you’re the one that has to make it. I would love reading a weekly blog for stained glass artists rather than just endlessly scroll TikTok videos in the community. I’m much more interested in the old style of connection: message boards, chat rooms, blogrolls. I’m only 37, okay, but I do miss the golden age of the internet. Instagram and TikTok can only do so much to connect people, and it’s really just a place for most people to lurk. Don’t get me wrong, I love making reels as much as the next stained glass artist, but I miss longform content! I’m probably the only one.

    I love writing about stained glass art and how my life is growing alongside my skills. I’m holding onto my intention and making sure everything I design and create is filtered through that purpose.

  • Yoga for Stained Glass Artists

    Yoga for Stained Glass Artists

    I think most artists would agree that making, crafting, and creating is a physical act. Artists put their blood, sweat, and tears into their projects–emphasis on the “blood” for stained glass artists. Memo: glass can be sharp.

    We often put our backs into what we love, and then throw our backs out in the process. It’s easy to shrug and say it’s the cost for creating. The aches and pains in our arms, wrists, legs and necks can be a testament to a job well done: an afternoon spent on hyper-focusing, a late night fully invested in the minutiae, a few precious hours of uninterrupted creation. And then you wake up out of your fugue state and realize you’ve been in the same position for four hours with your neck in that weird tilt, your wrists locked up with overuse, and you’re screwed because you’re in your thirties and you forgot to stand up and drink water at least once an hour. Is that just me?

    I don’t feel like I’m alone in needing to physically decompress after a few hours of intense crafting, so I’m compiling a playlist of yoga stretches for the stained glass maker. There are some great resources out there for artists of all varieties, but this playlist is going to be heavy on the wrist, neck and back stretches for hours spent hunching over glass pieces, soldering away.

    Sometimes time just doesn’t exist when I’m smoothing out some juicy lines of solder on a suncatcher. Clocks don’t hold a candle to the flow state. But when that happens, god forbid I have to shelve books at the library the next day–I’ll bend down and never get back up.

    Prioritizing my health (physical and mental) has been one of the hardest things I’ve learned to do over the years. At the end of the day, it’s pretty easy to take five to ten minutes to shake out the strain and stretch the stress from my shoulders–all the stress that accumulates from making art, but also work and life and plans and all the things that build up over a lifetime of being busy. I’m discovering that the more I focus on easing that concentrated stress from my muscles, the easier it is for me to just function well.

    Dropping my stained glass artist playlist here, made on my new YouTube channel! The playlist itself is collaborative, so if you’re an artist and you have videos you’d like to include, please let me know. I’ve been doing yoga for over 20 years now, so I hope to someday start sharing my own stretch routines for stained glass artists on the channel. Thanks for following along and I hope I see you on the mat!

  • Embracing Experimentation in Stained Glass Art

    Embracing Experimentation in Stained Glass Art

    I’ve been fully immersing myself into artistic content for a while now, hoping to surround myself on social media with mosaic and stained glass artists. Being inundated with the art I love helps the creativity flow; it stokes the obsession, and it’s a great way to spread positivity. If I haven’t left at least ten positive comments on other artists’ reels in a day, I’m not awake.

    And I’m learning so much as I’m observing and participating in the community. Something that artists generally tend to do that’s a really great life philosophy is to experiment with subject, process and style. I don’t think there’s any type of art out there that can be done only one way to achieve only one type of end goal. Everyone seems to do it a little uniquely, and glass art is no different. There’s no one way to make stained glass art, and there seems to always be something new to learn. “But that’s not how it’s done” isn’t typically a refrain you read in comments for glass art, at least not on the reels I see. The predominant comments are always “I’ve never tried that before!” or “I’ve tried it this other way and it worked, too!”

    Experimenting can be difficult to do when you get into a little stubborn groove in life. If I stumble into what works and get comfortable there, I may never have TIME to try something new. Who has the stamina to experiment with different techniques when we already have one that kinda works okay? Usually, most of the time? And that’s why it’s awesome to be part of a community of artists who live to experiment and try new things.

    One of my favorite experimenters on Instagram & YouTube is Grizzly Glass Art. He makes step by step tutorial videos about every part of the stained glass process, which I know beginners and even seasoned veterans are appreciating so much. It takes so much time (and sometimes so much money, when it comes to expensive hobbies like stained glass) to experiment and possibly fail. So Grizzly Glass does it for us. Thinking about experimenting with different brands of patina? He’s done side by side demonstrations. Worrying about how to incorporate hobby came or zinc came to your borders? He’s gathering advice from other artists and demonstrating multiple techniques. It’s really freeing to watch someone film themselves TRY, without fading to black and a perfect finished product. There are a lot of artists out there filming their process, including their experiments, to help the larger stained glass community. Not only do I (and the wider community) appreciate the effort, but it’s an ongoing reminder that we should never stop trying.

    Sometimes the experiments fail, and that’s when we learn the most–another unfortunate but powerful life lesson. Observing other artists continue to try, continue to make changes and alter their methods, seeking not just to improve but to share that knowledge, it’s truly humbling.

    In that spirit, I’m going to try a new method of patina application I’ve seen a few artists do on Instagram lately. Applying Kwik flux cleaner and patina together at the same time? Seems like a horrifying prospect, but I’ll never know until I try something new. So cheers to all the makers who are experimenting and sharing the journey! I hope to start adding to the community in my own way–maybe not with step by step videos, but perhaps with very intentional reinforcement and encouragement. How about a stained glass cheerleader, shouting to the sky about how cool y’all are? I can do that.

  • Lofi & Stained Glass

    Lofi & Stained Glass

    I know, I know. It’s incredibly predictable. Lofi music, or as my mother calls it “elevator music,” and millennials go hand in hand. I read somewhere the theory is that millennials are the last generation to wait with hold music on the landline phone, held hostage to the kitchen wall by a spiral cord with nowhere to go. Permanently damaged.

    I’m not sure I buy that particular explanation, but I do truly love lofi music. It’s so easy to work with; it gets me into a flow state for stained glass, writing and designing. Maybe my brain can’t really turn off until there’s a soft drum kit and ambient reverb.

    It’s why I love to put on a lofi girl or chill hop compilation on YouTube and read, wrap stained glass pieces or bake bread in the kitchen–whatever hobby is calling to me at the moment. Lofi, especially dreamy compilations, help me romanticize my life and every little chore I’m doing throughout the day because a part of the story.

    So that’s why I’m starting to record some long-form stained glass videos so I can set them to Lofi music for YouTube. Watch stained glass art come together like a neat little foil-wrapped puzzle while the dulcet tones of independent Lofi artists play through the speakers!

    Fair warning here: I am not a musician or audio creator of any kind. I’m hunting for sounds I really like, Lofi beats I would personally listen to over and over. I’m currently using whatever I’m legally allowed to use on CapCut, while crediting the artists. I would LOVE to feature lesser known or beginning Lofi creators in upcoming videos, so if you or anyone you know is interested in Lofi or ambient music design, please contact me through the contact form here and we can start up a conversation!

    I hope to add tutorial videos to my YouTube in the future as I learn more about what I can provide the stained glass community. We’re a really generous bunch of artists who love to share tips, tricks, and helpful hints for making stained glass. The stained glass community is so welcoming and genuinely supportive, in person and online–I hope to give back whatever I can, even if it’s just chill music compilations to listen to while crafting!

    Follow along on my new YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@SageHouseGlass.