Around 1989, I created this fused piece for a couple in Duck, on the outer banks of North Carolina. It was for a couple of kitchen doors on the third floor of their beach home. I had never created a fused project before. Fusing requires using formulated glass so all the colors are compatible. After cutting to my slightly oversized pattern, I overlapped the cut lines and fired to around 1150 degrees in my old pottery kiln. After installation, we discovered that as the sun moved across the room, the light would hang on the cut lines for a

Around 2008, a retired couple in Charlottesville, VA, began collecting some of my work. They lived in a small condo with many art pieces accumulated over the years. After downsizing into their new home, their living space had become quite crowded. One day, they contacted me, wanting to share an idea. We would like to have another one of your windows, but we don’t have another window. As the three of us made our way around their living area, we all spotted a space along a wall that had potential. I had an idea, but I knew I would

Around 1978, the Tobacco Company Restaurant in Richmond, Virginia, was turning its basement into a disco lounge. The owner had a design for the wall behind the dance floor, 40 feet long and 9 feet tall, of a Victorian restaurant and couples dancing. The only reason I can think of for him selecting this design is that he liked to decorate with stained and bevel glass from the period, and he thought it would fit right in. Sometimes, a design may not seem appropriate for the occasion, but it makes the customer feel more “High class” and willing to

The difference between a skylight and a laylight is a skylight function as a roof window, while a laylight is flush with the ceiling of an interior space.This particular laylight was a substantial 54″x54″ in size. Since I could control the lighting, I thought a summer nightfall theme with a moon passing over treetops would be interesting. I used dark blues from Lamberts Glass for the late evening sky and various shades of our flamed worked leaves for the tree tops. A simple lighting fixture supplied the moon effect. Once again, I was faced with how to support the

This is a kitchen skylight. I wouldn’t say I like reinforcing bars in my windows. The general rule for vertical windows is to add one every eighteen inches. I would figure two to three bars on a horizontal skylight like this one, 28″x 40″. My goal was to create a unique design that would give the illusion of looking through a skylight into the Fall tree tops above, with some of the leaves detaching from their branches and blowing in the breeze. This design left absolutely no room for straight reinforcing bars. The glass was Lamberts hand-blown from Germany.