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What's New

Our Latest Commission

When the Army National Guard decided it's new multi-purpose building on the grounds of the Wendel Ford Training Center in Greenville, Kentucky, needed a focal point, they commissioned Home Studio Studio Art Glass to design and build a Stained Glass Window. The planners wanted the subject to be the Minuteman, symbol of the Kentucky National Guard.

Our design depicts the citizen-soldier, musket in hand, ready to defend his home and his country. The approaching storm clouds foretell an uncertain and perhaps turbulent future. But with the sun breaking through comes the promise of a new dawn.

The Minuteman Window is six feet tall, and nearly 4 feet wide.

Kath Wins Merit Award!

The Medical Center and The Women's Center in Bowling Green held their 17th annual Women In The Arts open art exhibition, providing female artists in Kentucky with the opportunity to showcase their work.

The categories included Painting, Works on Paper, Fiber Works, Sculpture/Ceramics and Photography. Stained, Slumped or Fused Glass pieces were included in the Sculpture category.

Kath's award winning entry was entitled "Lakshmi", a fused and slumped bowl made from Rainbow Iridized glass that she had painted and sandblasted and expresses the "creative energy of the female".

Lakshmi, along with other Merit Award Winners, will be on display in the Capital Arts Center in downtown Bowling Green until May 1st.

Glass Casting Class

We've finished a 3-day glass casting class with Louisville Glass Artist Fred diFrenzi at the Louisville Glassworks. Fred is a terrific, adventuresome glass artist and a really great guy whose glass castings are world renowned. Fueled with the high-octane coffee everpresent in the small Glassworks kitchen and a natural enthusiasm for glass, his classes are funny, energetic and very instructive

Day one was devoted to sculpting a 3-D piece from various materials such as clay or styrofoam. I created a clay fish with it's tongue sticking out and Kath made an abstract design in styrofoam. This is the "positive", in other words this is in the shape of the final product. This concept of positive and negative caused us considerable confusion as we tried desperately to get our walnut sized brains around a separate project Fred assigned us to go along with our experience in slumping glass. The less said about that, however, the better.

Day 2 was spent making a "dam" around our projects to hold the mold mixture, which in this case was water, molding plaster and silica flour. This mixture produces a very detailed negative. After it was poured into the dam we'd created and allowed to set the postives were removed. In our case, both positives were destroyed in the process of removing them from the mold. For Kath, in fact, removing all the little styrofoam beads from her mold took over an hour.

Day 3 was spent choosing, cutting and arranging the different tyes of glass in our molds. This was a challenge for me as I wanted a solid look. If you use chunks of glass, you'll always be able to see the separate pieces that were melted together. It will look like a matrix in the glass which may be desirable in some situations but it's not the look I wanted. It took me 3 tries to choose and cut the glass for the look I wanted but I was finally ready. Kath was able to finish hers in a matter of minutes.

Our pieces went into the kiln and were fired at 1550° for 40 minutes

After taking them out of the kiln, the mold material needed to be scraped away. It has the consistency of a hard meringue after being fired so it isn't reusable.

This is Kath's “Blue Wave”. It's 8 ½ inches by 8 inches.

This is my “Trout With Rasberries”. 11 inches tall.

New Windows in Adair Co. Church

We just finished installing these eight Stained Glass windows in the Church of the Nazarene in Glen's Fork, Ky.

Detailed View

Here's what Paster Jay Damron had to say: "First, everyone was VERY pleased with the windows. I heard many flattering comments on the work you guys did. You may use us as a reference if you like. I would be glad to tell anyone what a great job you guys have done here."

They really liked the work we had done on the Horse Cave Church of Christ and wanted the same design in their windows. We changed the design slightly and then offered them some glass color combinations. After several combinations were rejected, we were able to come up with a group of colors and textures that everyone could agree on.

Then it was time for a trip to Kokomo, Indiana to visit the Kokomo Opalescent Glass Company, where we hand selected the sheet glass we were going to use. It was never in doubt what type of glass to use, Kokomo has a huge selection, they're close enough for us to make the trip, and their prices are reasonable.

For a large project like this, Kath does the cutting (I don't think she trusts my cutting abilities). Once the glass was cut I leapt into action, leading, soldering and puttying the windows.

There was a considerable amount of demolition involved in the installation of these windows; we had to first remove the aluminum double-hung sashes. But with the aid of a hired carpenter we were able to install them all in one day and I think they look great. Not that I'm prejudiced or anything.