Smith Museum of Stained Glass Windows, Chicago

Chicago, IL

      In late summer my family and I traveled to Chicago to do some sight seeing.  We of course stopped off at the Shedd Aquarium and Navy Pier.  While wandering through Navy Pier's vast shopper's paradise we stumbled upon a treasure trove of stained glass windows!! Housed within Navy Pier's Festival Hall is an entire stained glass museum...what luck!!  The Smith Museum of Stained Glass Windows is a permanent display of 150 stained glass windows displayed in an 800 foot long series of galleries.

Smith Museum of Stained Glass Windows, Navy Pier, Chicago

      Open since February 2000, The Smith Museum is the first, and only, museum in the United States dedicated solely to stained glass windows. It showcases both secular and religious windows and is divided by artistic theme into four categories: Victorian, Prairie, Modern and Contemporary. All of the windows were designed by prominent local, national and European studios and most were originally installed in Chicago area buildings.

Landscape With Yellow Sky, Louis Comfort Tiffany, 1915

      Imagine my delight when I discovered that within this amazing stained glass wonderland were 13 windows designed in the Louis Comfort Tiffany Studio!  I was standing mere inches away from stained glass creations that had come from Tiffany's studio in New York City! I confess...I embarrassed by daughter more than a few times with stifled "eeeks!" of excitement. 

Evening Landscape, Louis Comfort Tiffany, 1910

      Tiffany first began experimenting with glass art in 1873. He opened the Tiffany Glass Company in 1885, which then became the Tiffany Glass and Decorating Company and later Tiffany Studios. After designing hundreds of beautiful windows for churches, public buildings, and homes of his wealthy clients, Tiffany became one of the most well-known glass designers in the United States.

Landscape With Waterfall, Louis Comfort Tiffany, 1920's

       For me, and many other glass artists, being able to see Tiffany's designs in person, and to be able to get up close and study his physical methods of glass craftsmanship was incredibly inspiring.  Tiffany incorporated some revolutionary techniques in his designs that simply do not translate through textbooks or internet photos.  

Autumn Landscape, Louis Comfort Tiffany, 1890's

      Louis Comfort Tiffany treated glass art differently than any artisans had since the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.  For example, Tiffany studied the distortion effects of light in wine bottles and discovered that imperfections, like streaks of lighter or darker areas, in sheets of glass could be used to depict atmospheric colors such as during a sunrise. His conclusions led him to experiment with entirely new types of glass, including opalescent glass, to portray atmospheric conditions. His radical new treatment of stained glass windows didn't stop there...

Tiffany explored using dimensionally formed drapery glass to mimic folds of fabric in clothing.

The texture in this angel's dress have been specially formed to mimic the folds of actual fabric.

He utilized mottled glass to emulate the dappled effect of sunlight through leaves.

Close up of tree foliage created using mottled glass for a sun-dappled leafy effect.

See that mottled, leafy-looking glass near the top of this window?
Angel Pair, Louis Comfort Tiffany, 1910

By strategically placing striated glass, Tiffany could evoke the movement of water.

Close up of the waterfall seen in Landscape With Waterfall.

Tiffany also began to incorporate non-traditional objects such as seashells, pebbles, and large faceted chunks of jewel-like glass.

Large glass chunks incorporated into a stained glass window design giving a jeweled appearance.

Tiffany even created a practice called “plating” which refers to the technique of placing several pieces of glass one behind the other.  By plating various pieces of glass into one composition Tiffany created the impression of depth of color and of geographic distance.  

In this photo you can see how the section of green is mounted atop the rest of the glass panel.

The bottom section here (the area that looks less in-focus) is a section of glass plated atop another piece containing the pebbly detail.  The top glass softens the details of the bottom glass to create the illusion of distance. (Close up detail from Landscape With Waterfall)

Another example of plating a solid glass atop a detailed layer to create atmospheric perspective.  In this window, Evening Landscape, the skyline detail of the bottom layer of glass has been painted on.

      Painting the finer details of a design on the glass's surface was not a new technique during Tiffany's time.  Glass artists practiced the art of "staining" glass during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.  Tiffany also used this tried and true method of creating dramatic details in some of his glass creations, especially those featuring people.  

Painted detail from Angel Pair

      Even though I've chosen to focus on the awe-inspiring designs of the Louis Comfort Tiffany Studios here, I would be remiss if I didn't mention the amazing abundance of crazy-awesome stained glass windows on display at the Smith Museum.  There are designs by renowned stained glass artists John LaFarge and Frank Lloyd Wright, as well as Chicago artists Ed Paschke and Roger Brown.  There is even a very large window designed by the successful female glass designer, Marie Herndl. 

      The museum also presents unique contemporary pieces including stained glass portraits of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Michael Jordan and a window created from soda pop bottles. I found it very interesting to see how modern stained glass designers incorporated some of the techniques that Louis Comfort Tiffany developed during his lifetime, such as...   

...the use of dimensionally formed drapery glass to mimic folds of fabric...

 Jerusalem Mount Zion Window in King David's Tomb, 1998
Designed and fabricated by Isaac Malis

This formed glass creates the look of a fabric curtain hanging in a window.
At first glance one could forget that it is made of hard, brittle glass.

...the incorporation of non-traditional objects such as large chunks of dimensional glass...

Slab Glass Composition, 1960
Designed and fabricated by Conrad Schmitt Studio

This piece is constructed largely of thick slabs of irregularly shaped glass.

...and contemporary glass artists still engage in the age-old practice of painting on the surface of the glass...

Roger Brown Silhouette Window, 1999
Designed and fabricated by Botti Studio 

      Please stay tuned as my family and I continue our journey through Chicago, and discover more stained glass treasures along the way...see you at the Art Institute of Chicago!

Kokomo Opalescent Glass

One of my favorite places on earth...

http://www.kog.com/ Just a hop, skip, and a jump over to Kokomo, Indiana!

      I have been shopping for glass at Kokomo Opalescent Glass since my first glass class in college, quite a while back.  I love getting my sheet glass here not only because it is so close to home, but because I love the idea of supporting local manufacturers when I can. (Hobby Lobby sells beautiful glass, but it's not made in my own back yard!).  AND, KOG has loads of scrap glass that I can pick up at very affordable prices!  

A frame I made using sheet glass made at Kokomo Opalescent Glass

      Even though I've been visiting KOG for years, I had never taken the opportunity to take to the guided factory tour they give every Tuesday through Friday. Until this summer, that is!  I had planned this tour for mid-summer, and was very excited...until the summer decided to mimic the conditions of hell for weeks on end!  Knowing that sheet glass is molten at some point in it's creation, I postponed our tour waiting for a day where the temperature might only reach the mid-nineties! 

Entering the KOG glass manufacturing building

      Finally it arrived!  A coolish day (only 85!) and slightly rainy at times, perfect for touring the KOG sheet glass making factory, where the fiery gas-fed furnace burns at 2500 degrees, 24 hours a day.

The ingredients for the 122 year old glass "recipes" are placed into each of the 12 pots of this furnace and overnight they are melted together in preparation to become sheet art glass.

      The first sight that greeted us inside the factory was this old, crusty looking "honeycomb" furnace.  We learned that this gas furnace burns 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Can you imagine their gas bill?   Each day's work begins at 6 a.m. when the glass ladlers are ready to start dipping the molten lava-like glass from inside this furnace. 

These workers are ready to ladle.
The long silver handles are attached to little bowls which carry the molten glass.
Right now they are cooling in a tank of water.

A pile of left-over molten glass.
You have absolutely no idea what color the glass is until it cools.  

      Every minute and a half a bell rings, signaling the men to dip their ladles into the furnace and gather the glass for the next sheet of art glass to be made.  They dip out certain amounts of particular colors, then rush over to the mixing table.

The mad dash to the mixing table.
 (Please forgive the blurriness of my photos.  Flash photos would distract the workers handling the molten lava-glass.)

Depositing the molten glass onto the mixing table.  

      Once the ladles are emptied onto the mixing table, a flat metal surface on a conveyor, the Mix Man mixes the 45-50 pounds of liquid colors together with a two-pronged fork. 

The Mix Man mixing.  

      The Mix Man, a highly experienced craftsman, basically determines what the glass sheet will look like in the end. Too much mixing and the colors will combine too much and develop an indistinct look.  Too little mixing will produce blotchy, uneven color blends.  Once his mixing-intuition is satisfied, the Mix Man feeds the glass through double rollers, extruding a sheet of glass about 96 inches long and 35 inches wide. 

The mixed glass being sent through double rollers, extruded into a flat sheet, and sent into the annealing lehr, or oven.

      Once the molten glass is pressed into a sheet, it moves to an annealing lehr where it will cool to its natural color.  An annealing lehr is a temperature controlled oven where the glass can cool slowly to prevent breaking. At the end of the glass's journey it reaches the cutting area.

The cutting area.
The large silver "wall" behind the men is the annealing lehr.
The glass is conveyed out, directly into the cutting room.

       Glass cutters, wearing heavy arm protectors, check for consistent thickness and colors, then trim the glass sheet and throw the cut-offs into a bin for recycling.    

Inspecting and stacking finished glass sheets, ready for shipment or retail.

       The finished glass sheets are then shipped off to anxiously waiting customers around the world, or sold in the Op Shop (KOG's on-site retail shop) to local, and not-so-local, glass artists. 

Prepared glass in the aptly nicknamed Rainbow Room.

      Our tour didn't end with the sheet glass production.  We went on to tour the factory's hot glass studio where they create hand spun and blown glass art, and also visited with the craftspeople producing stained glass art, windows, glass beads, and other art glass creations.  I learned so much about the glass making process during my tour of Kokomo Opalescent Glass, and left feeling all sorts of inspired! I can't wait to go again...anyone up for a field trip?!