Ready for Assistants

Before…

Before…

Can’t believe this, but I’ve hired some assistants! We’ve had some introductory meetings and did some training.  Everyone seems great, and they’re excited about the project!

The studio is almost ready. Robert built a long countertop in the garage and moved the remaining wire shelving out of the garage into the storage unit.  He installed pegboard and assembled the adjustable height workbenches.

We also traveled out to Mamaronek, NY to Bullseye Glass for some more sheets, and had dinner at Rye Playland on the Long Island Sound.

After!

After!

Ready to shift into high gear

Rob has finally finished painting the garage.  He also picked up Lamberts glass at Bendheim Glass in Wayne.  I’m psyched to be using this glass… it’s just so beautiful and I’m happy to have reason to use LOTS of it.

Seeing that the garage has almost transformed into a studio, I posted a job description on my website and made the hiring announcement on Instagram.  I received a lot of responses, many from people who have taken classes with me, or who have come to visit the glass cabin.  I’m going to need assistants - Rob did a rough count of the glass pieces, nuggets, and depression glass pieces on the front wall alone, and it’s a big number (and probably an underestimate)!

glass count

Project Manager's Progress Report

by Robert

I’ve finally gotten all of my non-essential tools out of the garage, and I’m starting to paint.  The black tar paper and the wood ceiling are taking about 3 coats of primer and two coats of paint, so it’s slow going, especially because there are no flat surfaces… everything is interrupted by studs, joists, and whatever you call the other things that I have to paint.  We also had the window in the garage replaced; it had been boarded up because of broken panes and neglect, and then covered up by all my spare lumber, for years.

I also mitered and ground 269 lengths of zinc for the edges of the square stained glass panels.  

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Neile seems to be making good progress with the glass.

Milestone!

The first few panels have been soldered, polished, and packed.  Only a billion more to go.

The garage is (not really) empty and almost ready to be painted. 

In the meantime, we are revising 1st galley of the book.  It’s great to see the photos and text laid out, though it’s a lot of work to double check that none of the photos that were omitted are actually necessary for the instructions to be thorough.  Gotta admit that it’s hard to tear myself away from the Makers project in order to re-enter the “author” headspace that obsessed me for so, so many months.  But the book looks great, and we’re getting it done.

Panel 1A complete

Panel 1B

The first completed panels

Full Scale Drawings Complete

I spent the past few weeks completing my full scale drawings.  I drew out each column on a long sheet of roll paper, and my studio workbench was wide enough to lay a few of these sheets side by side.  On Thursday, Rob took these rolls down to UPS and it took him over an hour to have them all scanned.  Now he’s printing out pattern copies of each panel separately, with guidelines that show the light line, the edge of the glass, and the outside edge of the zinc, so that each panel will be sized perfectly.

Drawings and glass everywhere.

Drawings and glass everywhere.

Rob’s tech setup: the multiple screens he accumulated as we worked on the book will come in handy on the Makers Project too

Rob’s tech setup: the multiple screens he accumulated as we worked on the book will come in handy on the Makers Project too

On Friday, we travelled down to Rainbow Glass and picked up all of the zinc, flux, and polish that we should need for the project.  And the fun part… I got to pick out so much beautiful glass for the project!  I filled a crate!  We snuck in some leisure time in nearby Asbury Park - kinda hedonistic – a nice walk along the ocean, with pizza at Porta, drinks at the Cuban place, and some oysters at the seafood place in the Convention Hall.  As we sat at the bar at Porta, an employee started taking down all of the plexiglass barriers along the bar… as we listened to the radio on the way home, we learned that the Governor Murphy had lifted the indoor COVID restrictions that afternoon. 

Now I’m cutting up my first patterns and making glass choices.  Rob is making trips back and forth to the storage unit.

Building a Studio

I’m going to need a team to get this project constructed, and we’ve decided to convert our messy old garage to a bright, comfortable stained glass studio. Robert is having a difficult time conquering his hoarding instinct, so we’ve decided to move the garage contents to a storage unit to save time instead of waiting for him to force himself to bring it all to the dump. Right now, the interior of the garage has exposed black tar paper on the walls, and there’s a ton of stuff in the rafters that creates a claustrophobic feeling, but I’d love to paint the whole thing white and have the space feel clean and airy.

Additionally, I’m seriously thinking that we should tear out the rotting old garage door, and replace it with a glass wall. I’d love to do the same to the rear wall too, so that the studio will have lots and lots of natural light. It would be so inspring to create stained glass in a studio full of sunlight!  On the practical side, I’ll need a place where I can error check and photograph the Makers Mark panels, and a glass wall might be a good solution… there could be cross-bars where I could place several panels side by side.  We’re drawing up sketches for this door.

I’ve ordered adjustable workbenches for my assistants, and once the garage renovation is getting close to completion, I’ll write up a job description and post it to my social media and webpage.

Book is done...Makers construction begins

I submitted my manuscript for my book, Kicking Glass, on March 31st, but there’s no time now to rest (aside from a weekend trip to New Hampshire).

My roll of full scale drawings travelled to Kentucky and back.

My roll of full scale drawings travelled to Kentucky and back.

And I brought this full scale sample panel to show my concept of incorporating depression glass pieces.

 

Just a week before the book deadline, I flew down to the Makers Mark distillery for some meetings, and I got the final approval on my 1/3 scale drawings.

 

Overall, the project will cover two exterior walls, the longer of which is about 35 feet long and 10 high.  I’ll construct around 80 or 90 stained glass panels about 21 inches square.  They’ll be set into aluminum curtain walls at the distillery, in a vestibule that is the entrance to the bottling line (where they dip the bourbon bottles into the wax – Margie’s idea!) and which also has a window into the lab.  The back wall of this vestibule will have a display of Margie’s pewter collecion (which inspired the name “Makers Mark”).

So now I’m immersed in making full scale drawings of the front wall, column by column.  All of my initial sketches were from the perspective of looking at the wall from the OUTSIDE of the building (with the door on the right), but now it makes more sense to think of the piece from the INSIDE (with the door on the left)  So, I’ve flipped everything over, which explains why my grid is numbered in the wrong direction!

I had been thinking like this…

now I’m thinking like this.

Needed to add a column in position 5.

Additionally, at our March meeting, the dimensions of the wall were changed a bit.  So I’ve needed to add a column (#5) to the front wall.  

We are waiting for curtain wall fabricator to give final dimensions so that we can print full scale patterns and start construction.   But we’re READY TO GO… to make pattern creation  and reproduction more efficient, I’ve invested in a 24” roll printer, as well as a ledger printer. In the past, I’ve done most of my large format copies using a light box and sharpie, but that’s not going to cut it here!

More details about the Makers Mark Project

So here's the deal with the Maker's Mark project.  I'm making a large window that is dedicated to the co-founder of the brand, Margie Samuels.  She played a huge role in shaping the family business, especially some of the aspects that you might be familiar with - the name, the label, and the red wax that seals each bottle - and she was a visionary who fostered (if not invented) the bourbon tourism that fuels that region of Kentucky and preserves an important and historic American industry.  

 
Part of my 1/3 scale sketch and some glass choices

Part of my 1/3 scale sketch and some glass choices

The building that will house my project will tell a bit of her history, and my design is packed with symbolism that relates to her. Margie was an avid collector of pewter (this inspired the name "Maker's Mark", which refers to the stamp with which an artisan would brand their pewter), so I will feature a Magpie in several places.  These are amazing birds... they are super intelligent, and reportedly collect shiny objects to decorate their nests. To create a vintage feel, and to further the themes of home, collecting, and artistry, pieces of Depression glass will be incorporated into the stained glass, creating texture and sparkle!  

Some of the Depression glass atop one of the watercolor sketches that I've been working on

Some of the Depression glass atop one of the watercolor sketches that I've been working on

 
Picking up some red glass for Maker's Mark at Youghiogheny Glass

Picking up some red glass for Maker's Mark at Youghiogheny Glass

I'll also include a huge cross section of tree rings to suggest the family history, as well as the importance of oak to Bourbon. I'll also refer to wheat and corn to represent the importance of land and agriculture to Maker's. One of my favorite parts of my visit to Star Hill Farm was a tour of the grounds, in which Rob Samuels stressed the importance of PLACE to the brand. Their bourbon is a product of the limestone that filters the water in the pond that provides all of their water. They employ a naturalist, and they've catalogued every species of tree on the grounds. Their recognition of the supreme importance of the local environment allows me the opportunity to keep exploring the subjects that I love... pollinators, bees, honeycombs, butterflies, flowers. It'll all be draped with luscious red swathes evocative of the dripping red wax that makes the brand instantly recognizable.

I'm so glad to be able to share this with you right now, since March is Women's History Month. Appropriately, Maker's Mark just released a new bottle featuring an image of Margie painted by Aaron Kizer. $25 from each bottle will be donated to the Bellarmine University Rubel School of Business to fund scholarships for its “Women of Color Entrepreneurs – Leadership Certificate”. more info on Margie and the Maker's Mark bottle release

pssssst...

there are a few more posts… click the “Older” button below….

Later COVID19, 2020 – Rolling With It

[This is my final backdated post… again, I’m writing this in 2021, but let me finish setting the stage…]

The Makers Mark project is progressing, but the whole world has been slowed down by the COVID19 pandemic, so it appears that our timeline might be delayed. In July, Clare from Herbert Press cold-calls me to ask whether I’d be interested in writing a book about stained glass.  Wow.  I have a quick conversation with my partner Robert, whose 25 year tutoring business has been destroyed by the pandemic quarantine restrictions, and he says “well, l’ve got a lot of free time, so I can help out with whatever you need.”    As it happens, I had ALREADY written a full book proposal about a year earlier, but I hadn’t been able to find an interested publisher.  So, I get back to Clare the same day, and say, check this out… here’s my book proposal.  I think I shocked her with such a quick turn around time.  She was hoping for a short timeline, and I thought to myself, the quicker the better, because at some point I’m going to need to get this Makers project constructed!

 

  The book is a whole nuther story, but in short, I dive in and produce all the words and photos between autumn 2020 and our manuscript’s hard deadline, March 31, 2021.  The timing actually works out pretty well… Makers will contact me in early 2021 and we agree to lock in final approval of my sketches in March, a week before the manuscript deadline.  I’m able to leave it to Robert to do lots of proofreading and logistical tasks with the book, and I have the early months of 2021 to finalize my drawings for Makers. 

[OK, that brings us up to speed, and further blog posts will be real-time.]

Attempting a photo shoot for the book.

Attempting a photo shoot for the book.

Early COVID19, 2020 – Changes Afoot

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[Like my earlier post, I’m actually writing this in 2021, but please indulge me…]

I presented Makers Mark with several concepts for the stained glass tasting room in January, and they seemed to be pretty psyched at the time.  However, I’ve just learned that the tasting room is not to be.  On the bright side, Rob Samuels has asked me instead to create an installation for a large wall at the front of a new building at the distillery.  It will be a glass walled vestibule that tells the story of his grandmother, Margie Samuels, who was in many ways the founder of the Makers brand, and even of “Bourbon tourism” in Kentucky.  I know from my visit to Makers last year how highly esteemed Margie is, and how seriously Rob and his family take their history, so being asked to commemorate this lady is a great honor!  Back to the drawing board….

An interesting proposal from Star Hill Farm

[Honestly, I’m writing this post long after the blog date above (it’s now summer 2021, and wow, the end of 2019 seems a long time ago!)  But let’s pretend as I tell the beginning of this tale:]

Back in August, while having a weekend with friends in Chittenden, Vermont, I opened an email from Kim at Makers Mark Distillery.  I read it, walked back out to the campfire, and said to my friends, “this is crazy, but apparently Rob Samuels from Makers Mark wants to speak with me about building a stained glass cabin on the grounds of the distillery in Kentucky.”  Fast forward a few weeks, and Rob invites me out to tour the grounds of Star Hill Farm and brainstorm some possibilities.  So, just before Thanksgiving, I hopped on a plane to Louisville, and then headed in a car to Loretto, and finally wound up in an all-terrain vehicle, exploring the rolling hills and woods of Star Hill Farm, where the Samuels family has been distilling whisky for several generations.  Rob was thinking about constructing a rustic tasting room with a view of the lake on the property.  He wanted to pay tribute to the (all?) important role of nature and location in the production of Makers Mark bourbon.  Jason Nally, the Makers naturalist, pointed out native plants and trees. He told me that Makers had worked with Kentucky Audobon to conduct a survey of bird species on the grounds, and with the University of Kentucky to do a genetic sequencing of the oldest White Oak on the propery. In the same vein, Rob told me about how the limestone under our ATV was responsible for filtering the water that is the main ingredient in his bourbon. 

Rob had come across photos of my stained glass cabin online, and had noticed the natural imagery that I used as its primary theme.  He hoped that I’d be interested in constructing a similar structure at Star Hill, paying tribute to its native species.  Yes, I would be interested!

Star Hill Farm is absolutely beautiful, and already features lots of glasswork.