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. I have always been impressed that the craftsmen could create a sheet 24″ x 36″ and how consistently the thickness of 1/8″ was maintained. My concern was that there was almost no room for flexing the glass. One crack and I faced a nightmare of a repair job.

I left a small gap between the glass pieces on each side of the broader branch areas to create realistic branches. After wrapping copper foil around each piece and carefully placing them on my pattern, I overlapped small finishing nails in the void and began soldering over the glass and nails to hold everything together. After I had all the nails and foiled glass secured, I began sculpturing the branches with my soldering iron and solder, lending even more strength to my window.

When this phase was complete, I attached copper wires I had shaped like branches and floated solder over them so all the metal would patina the same. After a thorough cleaning, I added my fall-colored, flame-worked leaves and a noon almost dead center.

This window was installed around twenty years ago and has never bowed or cracked.