Stained Glass Artwork: Not Just for Church Anymore

By Earl Hunsinger

If you’ve ever had the privilege of seeing any of the original creations by Louis Comfort Tiffany, perhaps at New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, then you know how beautiful stained glass creations can be. While Louis Comfort Tiffany was certainly a phenomenal artist and a master craftsman, the creation of stained glass windows and lamps is something that practically anyone can do, given the right tools and a little instruction.

According to the University of Wisconsin, the history of decorating with stained glass goes back 2,000 years, to wealthy Romans of the first century A.D. From the fourth century to about the 16th century, it was used mostly for religious buildings and featured mostly religious themes. For about the next three hundred years, what we today think of as stained glass fell out of style, with thousands of older windows in England being destroyed. It was not widely produced again until its revival in the 19th century by men like Louis Comfort Tiffany.

The term stained glass might be confusing to some. Today when an artist works on a stained glass project, they are not staining the glass. Instead they are working with pieces of colored glass that they have purchased from a glass company. Hundreds of companies make colored glass in various styles, colors, and thicknesses. As an example, Delphi makes some truly beautiful and unique items. They also have tools and other supplies for creating your own stained glass projects.

The concept behind stained glass artwork involves representing a person or object by blocks of solid color. These colored shapes are cut out of pieces of glass and fastened together. After deciding what stained glass decoration you would like to create, the first step is finding a pattern. Books of stained glass project patterns are available in craft stores and on the internet, or some have adapted pictures from coloring books or other sources. The key is to have pieces that are large enough, with no narrow sections. This is because the glass is fastened together by strips of metal, either thick pieces of lead or thin pieces of metal foil. In either case, the metal overlaps the glass slightly and is seen. This means that it blocks out some of the color of the glass. If the piece of glass is too small, the metal blocks out the entire piece of glass, which means that no light can pass through it and no color is seen.

After a pattern is selected, it’s helpful to plasticize it so that it holds up better. The pattern pieces are then cut out. Normally a special pair of scissors is used for this that cuts a strip of paper out between the pieces. This thin strip of paper is thrown away. The space that it occupied between the pieces of your pattern will be taken up by the metal used to join the glass together. After the individual pattern pieces are cut out, they are used to mark your glass. Each piece is placed on the glass that you want to use for that part of the picture and a pen that will write on glass is used to trace the shape of that piece onto the glass.

Various tools may then be used to cut out the pieces. A simple glass cutter and a couple of pairs of special pliers might be used, or for a few hundred dollars, a special glass cutting band saw can be purchased. Grinders are also available to ensure that the pieces of glass are exactly the same as the pattern that you cut out.

After the pieces are just right, thin metal foil is commonly used to fasten them together. This foil comes in various sizes and is sticky on one side. It is very carefully stuck to the edges of each piece of glass, with a slight overlap on both sides. The pieces are then placed together like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle and a soldering iron is used to melt solder onto the metal foil. When it cools, this solder will hold the pieces together. Lamps and other three dimensional shapes are assembled in a similar way, except that the edges of the glass pieces are ground at an angle before the foil is applied. This allows them to fit flush against their neighboring pieces.

If you would like to create your own stained glass pieces, but are not sure how to get started, it might be helpful to check with your local community college. Often these have classes at reasonable rates. For more information on working with stained glass, see the Stained Glass Association of America’s website.