(Artist: Elizabeth Devereaux, St. Thomas More Parrish & Newman Center)
Once again I'm reminded that unlike just about anywhere else in the world, including Tampa where I've been since May for work, if you need something, you can most likely find it in New York City (or Brooklyn, if you're willing to travel). Case in point, I've had a bug up my ass to do some crafty shit with collaged items between glass slides soldered together and worn as a necklace. Or something sort of like that. I don't know why these things occur to me but it becomes something akin to taking the train to crazy town until I actually try it (and more typically fail at it).
So for this latest obsession, I needed supplies, which, to anyone into arts-&-crafts, is the beckoning siren's call of doom. My husband now knows that short of establishing a reasonable budget of what I can spend on supplies, there is little he can do to stop it and just backs away, giving me plenty of room.
But can you find stained glass supplies in New York City? Yes you can! Tommy G at Manhattan Stained Glass has just the shop for you. He's a renowned stained glass artist and restorer who also has a workshop and retail store at the northern most end of SoHo. I had no idea either but that's why the Gods created Google, now innit?
A quick jaunt on the 1 down to Franklin Street and then over a block or so, you'll find the buzzer to his workshop and store on a very attractive block, wedged between some great buildings. You have to descend the two floors but he has good signs to get you where you're going. Tommy G. will greet you with his boisterous outgoingness and then help you, like he did me, with recommendations for copper foil tape, flux, and all the other stuff that you never knew you might need. I actually did know sort of what I needed (again, Google) but he provided me with those essential experienced tips that the internet either can't won't give someone trying to find out how to make soldered glass pendant art.
The great thing about Tommy G. is that he also runs 8-week courses in stained glass art making and if I could ever get done with my work in Tampa and actually return to New York for an 8-week stretch of time, I think it would be the first thing I'd do, somehow feeling that the miniature work I'm planning to do on the glass slides next week is only going to ignite the even more unreasonable obsession for making big, stained glass windows.
The real art in stained glass, once you have an image, is to choose the glass. So many choices! I think I have one more window left in me, and I'm still trying to imagine how I will use a slice of geode in it. It's been years since I've made a piece, but it really is satisfying work. (Note: don't breathe the flux smoke and wash your hands after handling the lead. Lead is not a good thing in your system.) When you do this, we want pictures. :)
ReplyDelete