New York City Installation

A little story by Ali Rogers about an installation far away from its origin in Scotland.

...so you know how your parents would tell you that one thing leads to another thing, and you never know exactly how a kindness plays out?

Well, please see the attached photo of a stained-glass piece....this was a closing gift from me to a buyer client, C.

C's day job is to hunt down corporations that are committing tax fraud, so she's really doing the Lord's work. I knew I wanted to get her something REALLY special.

As you can see, that ended up being a Stephen Richard original.

If Peter hadn't introduced me to Faith, who introduced me to John, who introduced me to Mark and Rhona, who introduced me to Stephen, it wouldn't have happened.

(Of course Stephen had to put up with about three dozen emails from me along the line too.)

But now, there's a little more happiness in the world, and a little more beauty. All because someone in Chicago thought I should meet someone in New York who though I should meet someone in England who thought I should meet someone in Scotland. Thank you all!!

Ali

Another view of the panel in place.

I'm really pleased that the panel arrived in New York City in one piece.  I'm also pleased that both "cleints" are pleased with the result.  It is the second NYC project.  It would be nice to get more.

West End Rebuild

I was called out to look at a door panel that had been broken because a delivery person decided to knock on the glass rather than the door frame.  In doing so, he broke one pane and unshipped some others.  The client and I agreed on a price.  In removing it, it became apparent that there were even more broken joints than I noticed initially.  When we got it back to the studio, we began preparations to take it apart and rebuild it.

Beginning the dismantling after taking a rubbing

Placing the dismantled pieces on the rubbing

After the rebuild, we installed the door panel with great success.

Installed door pane from the inside

Re-instated door panel from the outside

The replacement glass is not apparent without close inspection, all the glass is clean and the lead and joints are sound for a few more generations.

Sink

The big aperture drop for the Willow Tea Rooms has been good experience for smaller projects.

I am in the process of helping to create an oval sink with a specific height, and dimensions at the top.  Rather than creating a custom mould, it was decided to do a free drop to the desired height with a flat bottom to the sink.

View from above of the slumped blank

An aperture in the desired shape was cut from a 25mm thick board and suspended on bricks at the correct height.  

The set up for the glass

It was set to fire and the person came in the evening to check on progress and advanced to the cooling when the desired amount of glass had touched down to the shelf.

Sink from the end

The flat excess glass was cut away with a tile saw. and then the polishing began.

trimmed and roughed edge

There is quite a bit more grinding to be done to get to the polish stage and then there will be the drilling of the drain for the plumbing fittings.  Only a few weeks until completion.

Willow Tea Rooms Baldacchino

Much of my time since December has been taken up with the planning, testing and execution of a baldaccnino for the Mackintosh Willow Tea Rooms restoration.

I don't know whether Mackintosh called the structure a baldacchino or not, but that is how it seems to be referred to by the restoration people.

Traditionally a baldacchino is an architectural structure over the altar of a church.  Here it is placed over the entrance from the anti-chamber to the tea room proper as shown  from the upper gallery in this indistinct photograph. 

My part in this has been to develop the glass bowl forming the structure for the flower arrangements that you see supported by a column and a surrounding metal structure.

The original remit was to make an inverse dome 800mm in diameter with a 400mm depth.  In fact, half a sphere.  The glass would need to be at least 8mm thick. This is too heavy to blow, so a kilnforming method was looked toward.  

It would be possible to construct a metal mould to slump the glass into. (ceramic would be too heavy and even more costly).  This was rejected as being too costly and possibly subject to breakage due to the steep sides.

I indicated to the lead artist on the project that a free drop could provide a good approximation to the original without the markings from a mould. After discussion I was commissioned to make a prototype or example of what could be done with a free drop in a large gas kiln.  I am fortunate to work in a studio complex that contains a large ceramic studio that has a gas kiln of a bit more than a cubic metre interior.

The test involved cutting an 800mm circle from a metre square fibre board of 25mm thickness.  The 1000mm diameter disc of 10mm glass was centred over this aperture in the gas kiln.

Test 1 from the top

This shows the result of the first test including the supporting structure within the kiln.

Test 1 from the bottom

This proof of concept was accepted by the trust, but with a request for a deeper form.

For the second test I used 12mm glass, now realising where it was to be located and that, as it was to be deeper, to avoid excessive thining as the glass dropped.

Test 2 from the top

Initially this looked to be really good.  The depth was 340mm, much closer to what was envisaged by the Trust representatives.  (We did have a two-person film crew watch us take out the second test and put in the third, requiring some planning of what we were going to do for the benefit of the filming).  

Test 2 from the left

But looking from underneath, it became apparent that it was not symmetrical.

Test 2 from the right

A bit of head scratching and testing showed two things.  

As we were only able to use one of the two gas burners, the glass was moving toward that heat. We alleviated the unsymmetrical shape by adding baffles.  

The other thing showed by the tests for uneven firing was that we could not provide a sphere at the original depth specified. The weight of the glass pulled the whole into a parabolic shape, even though it was symmetrical.

Further discussions and investigations of the photographic evidence returned the decision that spherical was the shape required and we should try for the deepest we could get and still have a spherical shape.

Subsequent testing provided two acceptable shapes of 235mm deep.

comparisons of tests.

This image shows the first test in the middle, the second deeper at the back and at the front, the approved shape.

When we had two pieces (one to be spare for any future breakage) the other people involved came to do mock ups, take templates of the curves and generally discuss next stages.

mock up of the plate to hold the flower containers

mock up from the side

Soon we will be taking these to Stornoway to apply oil industry machinery to cut the rim from the shape.  When the polishing of that cutting is done, we will be travelling to Norfolk to apply marine technology to the glass, using chemical toughening.

These will be well traveled pieces of glass when complete. Only a few months to go.

To learn more about the restoration of the Willow Tea Rooms, go to www.willowtearoomstrust.org.

Methodist Church, Kilsyth

Some time ago, the Methodist Church in Kilsyth asked me to evaluate a circular window from their old church.

The congregation had decided that they needed to sell the too-large, too-drafty church building so they could build a new one more suited to their purposes.  They now wanted to make use of the glass they had been able to preserve from the original building.

We went through several possibilities ranging from refurbishing the round window and placing it on the wall; the use of the three colours to create a cross-like design in each of three windows on the uphill side of the new building and such like.  Each was an attempt to keep the costs as low as possible.

Further discussion within the congregation and between the property committee and me led to a more ambitious project.  It became clear that one of the objectives of the new building was to be open to the community in a variety of ways.  They also wanted the Methodist Church in Scotland symbol represented and, of course, the cross.  From the discussions, I suggested one of the windows should represent an open door.  I presented some sketches of how the existing glass could be used and combined with new glass to achieve the results.

The congregation considered these and came up with a modified set of images which I worked on.  These modifications were agreed, and I began building the panels for installation against the existing double-glazed windows.

Installation was not difficult, as the windows are not high in the walls.

The congregation is pleased with the result and so am I.

The complete installation

The image in the central window, using streaky glass for the colour and the existing glass for the background.

The right window image using flashed and acid etched blue and red glass. Streaky and original glass form the background.

The open door image in the left window using streaky, painted and stained glass together with the original glass.

Tower

During the construction of "Destruction", the Grenfell Tower fire occurred.  This attempt at housing and then improving the structure at lowest cost, led to a series of disastrous decisions. In short, cost won over safety.

This is my inadequate response to that disaster.

Tower (Urban Distopia 2) from above

"Tower" from the side

"Tower" from another side

Urban Distopia

Percolating away in my brain for some years has been a difficulty in finding a way of representing the destruction and violence at national levels.  At each stage something prevented me from continuing with any of the ideas.

Now after a visit to a conference, where there was some discussion about both techniques and expression, a new vein of thought and its possible expression began.  This is the first iteration of that thread of thought.  

Urban distopia is about the things that go wrong even when we - either as individuals or as a society - try to do the right things.  This first expression of the idea is based on the destruction being felt throughout the middle east.

Destruction (Urban Distopia 1)

The mirror is an attempt to reflect our responsibility for these things.  We are not just observers.  When we look at the destruction, we are reflected in it.  

Placed on a plinth at approximately eye level, the viewer is reflected amongst the destruction.

More Restorations

A delight for me at the moment is the start of a small restoration of some stair windows in a William Leiper designed house.  These windows are fixed directly into the stone above a sloping roof.  The owner took advantage of the erection of scaffolding to repair the roof to have me come to restore broken pieces of glass and to try to eliminate the amount of water coming into the house from the windows.

Taking glass out of stone is always difficult without breaking the edge pieces of glass, hence the tradition of one or two lines of narrow glass around the perimeter of the window, as these can be replaced without affecting the whole of the window. With the help of a friend and one of his tools, we managed to get the windows out without a great deal of breakage.

A more local appreciation of William Lieper

Float Glass Experiments

It is well-known in kiln forming circles that float glass is inclined to devitrify with long, slow or repeated firings.  I decided to try to take advantage of this for a panel.

I shingled the strips of float and fired them at 835C for 10 minutes.  I expected a striped result with devitrified surfaces alternating with clear cut edges.

I didn’t get it, though.  Instead there were areas of mild devitrification, but no strong bands.

top, general view

View of the top ends of the strips

General view of the bottom

Detail view of the bottom ends of the strips

There was some evidence of devitrification at the ends of the strips where points were formed. 

Some pointed ends showing devitrification

Even when viewed in detail, there is little evidence of devitrification.  I continued, to do a slump, but even then, the tin bloom and devitrification did not show strongly.  Sometimes when you want an effect, you are unable to provoke it.

Repairs in Clevedon

Even where regular maintenance is undertaken, there are accidents.  Doors seem to take the most punishment.  This house in the Clevedon area of Glasgow was subject to damage.

Even though it is set back from the road and with a gate, the glass got broken in a few places.

This is a large entry way with a grand hall behind it.

The door of course had a new break and a few others needed attention at the same time.

In addition, the fanlight above the door was rattling, although there were no breaks.  This was re-0cemented in situ.

A view of the completed repair from the inside.

This house was built in the period 1870-1890.  When compared to the entrance at a house in Bearsden built in the period 1910-1915 

[Bearsden   ] you can see that exactly the same design was used.  This shows the large studios did recycle designs, even though in this case 20-40 years later.

Repair and Protection

An existing bathroom window needed some repair, as well as consideration on how to keep the bathroom warmer.  It is a large bathroom with the glass in a steel frame.

The options seemed to be removal of the frame and installing the reworked glass in a double-glazing unit or secondary glazing.  The removal of the steel frame would require a whole new frame to be installed.  The tile work of the bathroom would be disturbed and need replacement.  All this would have involved quite a bit of expense.  In addition, the glass panels would need to be reworked into a single panel, requiring quite a bit of alteration.

The secondary glazing option would be almost as effective as double glazing, as the walls are thick enough to have more than 100mm each side of the existing frame.  And it would be much cheaper than the encapsulation and associated work.

In either case, there were panes to be repaired, and the whole window to be cleaned.

Break at left hand corner

Break at the right hand corner

Break beside a rose motif

Missing pane at the catch

The decision was to go for secondary glazing.  Because of the internal tiling, and the large space outside the frame, the secondary glazing was put on the outside.  This required a frame to be made for the protective glazing.  The glazing had a ventilation slot at the bottom to allow slow circulation of air and avoid condensation on the outside.  This is the same concept as the isothermal glazing used in churches.  This installation used a minor variation in allowing circulation of air from the bottom only, instead of all around.

The work on repairing and cleaning was conducted at the same time as the framing was done. 

Framing for secondary glazing 

The secondary glazing was attached in such a way that it can be removed for cleaning and decorative purposes.

Secondary glazing in place

The finished work shows no effect of the secondary glazing from the inside.  The pole for the washing line can be seen clearly.

The outside of the house shows no significant difference with the secondary glazing in place.