Stained Glass Supplies Ltd

I have been less active on this blog in the last months as I have been preparing for another change in my working life.

I have decided to take my practice toward gallery work rather than the restoration and architectural work that has dominated my life up to now.  And to support that activity, I have been preparing to open a shop supplying glass, advice, and services.

This is what has been behind the various construction activities that I have shown here since Christmas last year.  I have now recast the studio into two parts - shop and studio.

This is the entrance to the shop and studio on a dull day.

This area at the immediate entrance was filled today with Spectrum 96 frit, confetti, and stringer, so it does not look so bare as this.

This shows a corner of the cutting bench and some of the glass racks for S96 and stained glass, as well as the "office" section at the end.

One corner and the entrance to the glass studio are show in this picture.  The group of rods on the floor need to be tidied and possibly relocated, but they do for the time being.

The racks at the end are for pre-cut Bullseye, S96 and stained glass pieces.

Included in all this work has been the design brief for and then population of a new website and shop.  I knew there was a lot of work to this, but not how much.  The new site is at:
www.stained-glsss-supply.co.uk
Have a look around if you are interested.  And even better tell me of anything that does not look right.


Launch

The official launch of Stained Glass Supplies will be on the weekend of 6-7 October.  Those of you who can make it are invited to come for a gander, talk and some refreshments.

In addition, the whole of the building is opening the artist studios on Saturday and Sunday from 11- 4.  This is a great opportunity to see a variety of work and the ways and places in which the artists do their work.  Painting in a variety of styles, textiles, ceramics, photography, sculpture, glass working are all on show.  In addition there are drawing sessions and a treasure hunt.  And to keep you going, there is a cafe serving light snacks and refreshments.
http://www.stained-glass-supply.co.uk/

Christmas Show

Parade Artists completed its (now) annual Christmas Show in the Wasps Hanson St studio building last weekend.  We used the same kind of set up as last year since it  worked well then.  

The ceramics section ready for the show

The various media - Ceramics, Glass, Painting and Textiles were each set up in a group.  There were also plinths and display sections throughout the show area where the various forms were in mixed displays.

Glass section at the end of the day

Some of the paintings displayed

We were fortunate to have sponsorship from Kopparberg and also to have Supper in the Suburbs provide a  pop-up cafe

Some of the Kopparberg and some of the baking from Supper in the Suburbs

Some visitors enjoying the drink and baking

Although the weather was bad on some days, people still came to the show.  The numbers of visitors and exhibitors were down on last year, but we were not down hearted as can be seen from the faces of these three artists.

You can follow Parade Artists on Facebook through out the year.  Plans for other shows will be announced there.

Stair Window

I was called out to advise on what can be done for this stair window in Dunfirmline made around the beginning of the 20th century.  It is about 1200 mm wide and 1500 mm high.  It appears to be made in a single piece, which is very unusual.  It has 19 mm square glazing bars and you will notice that at the bottom there is an extra one, presumably for safety if anyone fell down the stairs they would not go through the window to the ground.

You can see there is internal secondary glazing up to where the round head of the window springs.  In spite of it being open at the top there is considerable condensation within the gap as you can see from this picture of a broken pane.  This makes the point that ventilation needs to be both at the top and the bottom.

The above image shows the only major break in this whole window.  There are of course small cracks here and there, but nothing obvious or likely to impair the function of the window.  The more major defect is at the bottom of the window where there has been a repair using violet instead of bronze coloured glass.

At the bottom, the window is beginning to develop an accordion style bend which is it major problem.  Had the window been built in three sections as I would expect for this size of window, the bottom section could be removed, taken to the studio to be flattened and repaired.  Trying to take this window out in a single section above a glassed in conservatory will be difficult and is bound to cause some breakage.

The owners have already decided to put a double glazing unit on the outside of this window.  This will have a gap of about 100 mm between the stained glass and the unit.  This will prevent any further ingress of water and drafts.  It will preserve the life of the window by many years without further action, but will not stabilise it.  I have made recommendations to the owners and await their response.

In addition, they have some breaks in this entrance screen.  They are all side by side, which is the most difficult to repair in situ.  So I am recommending that they let me take the panels out (filling the gap with clear glass) and repair them in the studio.

Open Studios, Day 2

The second day of the Wasps Open studios was a little shorter, a little less busy, but more time to talk with people. I had set up a few things to do to demonstrate some techniques and activities. So I finished leading and soldering a panel I am repairing,

and ground and polished some small vessels for the Christmas shows.

It seemed a happy weekend for everyone. Some people made sales. I didn't make many, but the best thing for me was meeting people, learning new things and letting people know I am here and what I do. Also half a dozen people asked about classes. I never remember how tiring it can be meeting and talking with a lot of people.


So I came home and vegetated last night, feeling good about a successful Open Studios weekend.

Open Studios, Day 1

WASPS Open Studios Weekend is in its 10th annual open studios event. Workshop and Artist Studio Provision Scotland - to give it its official name - is my landlord. The building I am in is one of the largest having 86 studios and over 100 artists working in the Hanson Street building which they keep trying to brand as WASPS Factory. Of course, it once was a tobacco factory, but I do not think anything being done in the building now is remotely like a factory - unless it relates to low wages.

Open Studios weekend is my annual opportunity to give the studio a deep clean. Possibly I get too involved in re-arranging equipment, benches, shelves, and storage, but I does make a difference as you can see from the entrance.

And from the back, near the kilns, it is a totally transformed place. People say it looks larger. I say I have just cleared up all the accumulated junk of the past year.

Bet even when I say that, I am proud of what has been achieved.

As I arrived today before the opening time, I noticed no one had done much about the front of the building. No one had cleared the weeds in the car park. No one had swept the area outside the entrance. And I had not pruned the clematis as I promised myself I would do - tomorrow - for the last month. So today I did some of these things. I also pruned the three varieties of clematis that grow outside the sliding door of my studio. I found the flowers with amazingly long stamens had transformed themselves after the petals fell into this intricate spiral of strands. I think something needs to be done with this image.

The day was interesting for the number of people I met and talked with. People interested in how I assemble leaded glass, who say with amazement "So, you do repairs too!!", people who admire the work on display, people who are interested in the techniques, or the tools, or the equipment, people who admit they are artists coming round to see how other people do something. All these people are interesting and entertaining, even the person who told a friend that "He is useless. He takes far too long to do a commission" and then went into the one space set aside as private.

The day is always stressful because you are meeting new people, responding to questions, trying to do several things at once all the time. Lunch was at 2:30 standing at a bench explaining to someone how the glass fits into the came, for example.

But the day was made more stressful, by finding out on Friday that the new point of sale credit card machine that I have had for 6 weeks was not working. Phoned the help line and after three times getting the message "We are receiving a high volume of calls today. Please leave your name and telephone number and we will contact you as soon as possible" I got a person who after taking a number of details from me informed me that my problem would be put to his team on Monday. He was a facilitator [!] taking details for others to work on at some other time. As I was trying to sort a problem with a - now disappeared - customer, I thought I was quite reasonable in saying "This is not acceptable! I need this sorted today. I have a big weekend coming up. I need to have this working now!" He conceded that it was very frustrating to be unable to sort the problem immediately, but if I really needed things sorted this weekend, I could phone on Saturday morning [! why not today?].

I duly phoned and left messages, until at 11:00 I got a person! Explained the problem. He has to contact the bank as - after all - he only represents the supplier of the machine, not the financial institution. After a 15minute wait while he phoned the bank, he tells me that the bank does not have my machine registered with my merchant number. So he can do nothing until Monday.

So I finally find a help number for the bank and they tell me "Yes, I can see from the computer that you are registered for this machine. Your machine reports a bad MAC? Well there is nothing I can do about that. It is the POS supplier's problem. You must contact them and they will arrange for a new MAC to be issued."

More left messages and on only the third call I got a person. After giving some details, he said "You are the person I talked to earlier today aren't you?" Yes, I am. These are the instructions I have received from the bank which now says I can recognise my merchant number and machine." He says he will have to contact the bank, but to avoid keeping me on the phone for a long time again, he will phone back. I wasn't sure that he actually would, but as I did have other things to do, I allowed the connection to be broken.

Amazingly, he did phone back a couple of hours later. Saying that the problem has been discovered. The bank has allocated two businesses to the same MAC. As the other business although newer than me is taking transactions and I am not, they will not cancel the other person's MAC to give it back to me. So, being very helpful, he promises to send me another machine to solve the problem. "You will have it on Tuesday." "How does that solve my problem today?" "I am sorry, this is the best I can do." It was as much as I could do to avoid swearing as I hung up the phone.

Now, most of the time there is a backup. However, the bank has failed to deliver this backup and associated documentation for almost 3 months. They state they have sent it out three times. It has never arrived. They can send me bills, and bank statements, but cannot deliver me the backup machine which would have overcome the crisis.

I think I have been too kind to the companies involved. The bank is Barclays and the POS company is Thyron. I don't have much respect for either just now. Their help lines are disrespectful in their approach to fielding phone calls "we will call you back". HAH. Never have they called me back from the more than 20 messages left at various times over the last four weeks. The bank does no follow up to find out if things have been received. The customer cannot do it, because they have no contact details. All I know is that the relevant department is in Northampton and that is not directly from the bank.

If you have got this far, you will know the long of it. The short of it is: It has been a stressful day.

Tomorrow should be better. No card machine and no worries about its absence.

Open Studio

In just two weeks at 12:00 the 10th WASPS open studios weekend will start. I am in the midst of trying to get a window completed for installation in the week before. So this year people are going to see a working studio, not a clean one. I realise that as I have participated in all of the open studio weekends, I have done 10 years of this. It continues to be fascinating meeting people with novel approaches to my work. I may have a bit of time to display a few things, but mostly it will be a working studio for the weekend. I might even get a few things done while talking with people.

Come along, if you can, to 77 Hanson Street, Glasgow G31 2HF. There is parking, a cafe, and lots of artist's studios open.

Studio Sale

It has been a busy few weeks, so I haven't met my schedule for writing. I have been on three visits/conferences (more later) , done one sale, completed first part of a large installation and got things ready for the Scottish Glass Society exhibition.

First things first. The Parade Artists show was held on the second weekend of May. About 25 artists participated in this first co-operative show. We have learned a number of lessons about marketing and making the show and event that people enjoy and want to come back to. We are committed to about 4 shows a year and are beginning to do the marketing work for the next one.

As you can guess from this, the show was not really well attended, but we all had a number of interesting conversations with various visitors which may lead on to other things. In my case, I got into a discussion about providing in service training for art teacher in a neighbouring local authority. This could lead to a continuing relationship with the schools that are outfitted for glass work of various kinds. I also talked to a few people about workshops. In one case, there is the possibility of one orgnised specially for a small group of people.

Although the show was not a great financial success for me, I did get good comments on a range of daffodil coasters (100mm square). These were made by using glass powders and firing a number of times to build up the colours and shading. I made them in a variety of shades as you can see from the photos below.

Of course, I spent more money that I took in by being so attracted to a painting by Lin Lee that I bought it.

May studio exhibition

I am participating in a Spring exhibition organised by the Parade Artists Cooperative at the WASPS' Hanson Street studios. The photo of the post card invitation is below. And the press notice that explains all the things you cannot see on the post card follows that. This is the first of the shows that are being organised by the participating artists. If you are near, come by and see what is on offer.

PRESS RELEASE- FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Parade Artists
W.A.S.P.S Studios 77 Hanson Street Glasgow G31 2HFT: 07796312613
E: paradeartists@yahoo.com
PARADE ARTISTS SPRINGING ABOUT

10th May – 11th May 2008
Opening: - Sat 10th May 2008 from 10am – 5pm
The newly- formed collective, Parade Artists is proud to present and host “Spring Show” at the W.A.S.P.S Factory Glasgow on the 10th and 11th May. The event will showcase a selection of new works for sell ranging in paintings, ceramics, textiles, jewelry and glass. Deirdre Murphy, Kathryn Pender and Zoe Gadsby are some of the many participating artists, all of whom have strong connections with Scotland and its Art Colleges.

Deirdre Murphy, 31, is winning an enviable reputation as a contemporary textile accessories designer for fashion interiors. Murphy’s’s style is attributed to her mother who used a sturdy singer sewing machine to make dresses for her six daughters. Murphy uses the same tool to create vibrant, luxurious, yet hard wearing, handbags, purses, cushions and throws. Her experience in the industry includes studio assistant with London ’s fashion designer, Arabella Pollen and dispatch assistant at Baird McNutt’s Linen factory, Ireland . She is now director of her own textile company Tenterhooks Ltd. Murphy completed her BA (Hons) degree in Woven Textile Design at the Scottish College of Textiles, Galashiels in 1998.

Kathryn Pender, 27, continues to explore themes of social constructs, personal interactions and the human form through multiply layers and abstraction in her paintings. Through the use of various materials combined with texture, Pender is demonstrates her own dialogues in her work. A BA (Hons) Fine Art Graduate from Gray’s School of Art , Pender has exhibited extensively both nationally and internationally. Her work has featured in several galleries including the Aberdeen Art Gallery , Aberdeen (2001); the Compass Gallery, Glasgow (2002) DAAD Zentrum, Germany (2005) and Lloyd Jerome Gallery , Glasgow (2006).

Zoe Gadsby, 34, is continuing to go from strength to strength as a glass artist after graduating from Glasgow School of Art in 1995. She has established a growing national reputation for her vibrant fused and leaded glass. Gadsby explores and manipulates glass’s transformational qualities using vivid, luminous colour that powerfully engages the senses and abstraction through geometric form. Simple geometric symbols and complex geometric patterning reflect naturally occurring chaotic forms fused with high-tech. circuitry, microscopic photography of viruses, cells and even atoms.

Frank To, a member of the Parade Artists Collective says, “It’s quite rare to have a large number of artists working together to showcase an event of this scale. ‘Spring Show’ is the perfect opportunity to show the scale of Parade Artists as a collective as well as talented individuals who are participating.”

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“Spring Show” opens Saturday 10th May 2008
W.A.S.P.S Factory 77 Hanson Street Glasgow G31 2HF