The Quest

Forward movement The firmament is done, and all that needs be done is to paint the sun and moon. Soon. The mechanical work of cutting a couple of hundred pieces of glass is largely over, and now endless fitting, trimming, and painting will begin, or better, continue.  Today, I realized that the image is starting to take on a life of its own; this sounds crazy, but it's showing me what needs to happen to enhance it. I'd opted for some simplification in some areas, and it said no, thank you. Get back to work.  An example: I had planned just to rough in with paint two tiny townscape pieces in the center of the image. Each is the size of my thumb, or smaller:   Well, no, that wouldn't do. This is what a couple of hours realized. Paint and shading still needed, but you get the point. So from macro scale (pieces of glass up to two feet long and 15 in. wide) to almost microcosmic scale:   Here above, the little yellow strips are the pattern pieces for the ...

A week of transitions The work is taking hold. And the hardest part is almost over. By early next week, I’ll have the entire piece cut out, some 120 pieces worth, and I’ll be working on spangling the evening sky with 60 some-odd   stars. Those stars are still to be cut on a diamond band saw before fusing: twelve cuts to each star. It’s impossible to cut the sharp inner angles any other way. Hard on the fingers, and noisy. But beautiful. And then about a hundred pieces to paint and fire. Pazienza. Here’s a video of the bedazzler process if you’re interested: click the arrow to watch it. You can increase its side with the square box on the bottom right after clicking it. An easier and very satisfying task has been to lay in sun rays made of glass “stringers,” strands of amber glass the diameter of angel hair pasta and spaghetti. They go down with Elmer’s white glue, which burns off entirely in the kiln but holds the pieces in place until the kiln takes over. T...

Monday, Sept 9. Showers and sunbreaks, cooling down. Big thunderstorm on Saturday night, and heavy rain. Good for the forest, and for reducing fire danger. The work is starting in earnest, finally. The last few days have been finishing up the preliminary steps, tedious but essential. From the original enlargement of the 19th century wood engraving, the next step was to assign colors to all the areas and define the "cutlines", literally, where the glass will be cut. That first drawing of the cutlines is done on tracing paper, and each piece to be cut is given a number and an alphabetical code for the color it is. When working on a project of this size (more thatn 120 pieces to be cut in 18 different colors, organization and control) a lot of thinking and planning has to precede the actual work. Here's the traced cutline:  Then, the design is traced again onto pattern paper applying analog technology: a pencil and carbon paper. Using a pair of sheers that removes ...

This blog is a reflection on a project I'm working on during a two-month artist residency at the Grunewald Guild, an ecumenical art center not far from Leavenworth, WA. It's a easy way for me to share a complicated work I'm embarking on after my recently completed six-year term I as rector of the Arrupe Jesuit Community at Seattle University. Friends have asked me to share the process, which I do gladly. These entries will describe the process, and give me the opportunity to chronicle and share what I'm learning in an extraordinary place. To start with, here's the project description I presented to Seattle U last spring. I'm extraordinarily privileged to share this commission with Michael Schultheis, a remarkable artist who's become a friend. Michael is a polymath, a fine artist and an historian of mathematics.  You can see his work on his website, at  https://www.michaelschultheis.com/ Project Description:  The plan for this work is a collaboratio...