Lead and Art

[iaff84]

Why does it appear to me that leaded glass work seems to be an evil step-child to what some refer to real art glass, that being warm and hot glass? What am I missing here?
This just from looking at several other forums and picking up bits and pieces.
Do some who do their work in warm glass feel that it cannot be expressed in “cold hard lead” panels? Are lead panels cold and hard?
Just looking for some open discussion for a better understanding from someone who lives way outside the art trade and looking in.
Dennis Swan

[bert weiss]

Why does it appear to me that leaded glass work seems to be an evil step-child to what some refer to real art glass, that being warm and hot glass? What am I missing here?
This just from looking at several other forums and picking up bits and pieces.
Do some who do their work in warm glass feel that it cannot be expressed in “cold hard lead” panels? Are lead panels cold and hard?
Just looking for some open discussion for a better understanding from someone who lives way outside the art trade and looking in.
Dennis Swan

Dennis

I am one of many people who migrated from flat glass to kiln formed glass. I had a hard time selling leaded glass. Kiln formed glass is easier to sell. One can buy a piece and not have to rebuild their house to show it.

In my opinion it is really much harder to design leaded glass well. Most of what I see is poorly designed. When I did repairs, I would get panels to fix that were expertly constructed, but designed wrong, such that the glass would crack and the leads would sag out, prematurely. The designer craftsman movement produced a lot of copper foiled work with nearly impossible glass cuts, slivers of glass, and these panels didn't survive long without developing cracks.

Back around 1990, I took a hot casting and kiln casting class at Pilchuck. Most of the students and most of the teachers began their careers working in flat glass, and were changing over to kiln formed or furnace melted glass. 2 of the teachers actually switched to become students. We had an experimental session with 40 students, 7 teachers, and no structure. It was big fun. Especially the last night when they gave us 1000 lb of molten glass with which to do performance art!

[iaff84]

Bert,
Would it be safe to say then that the designer craftsman era sealed the tomb on leaded glass as far as art goes?
Is the day of autonomous panels gone?
I must say I miss seeing examples of this type work.
I fall into the area of craftsman, my strong point would be the area of grinding and polishing for the bevels. (I am now called a cold-worker which I find not to my personal liking) I have done little designing and it has been years since I leaded up a panel. Have just filled my days doing the beveling others needed for their work.
I am at a point in my glass life to start doing my own work just to find there is little work being done or at best, taken serious.
Just a small observation from a small area in this world which now seems to be hooked up to the world through the net.
Dennis Swan
PS: I take this may be old hat to you after my warm glass post

[Tod]

Dennis:
I'd guess that part of your frustration comes from the current trend in glass art. Stained and leaded is out while kilnformed and hot is in.

The autonomous panel lives and is probably found (and sells) in more places than you think. The real deal is how good is any of it? Any medium can be art, IMHO, but there is an awful lot of stuff out there which looks like everything else.

The thing I notice is that to be in most "galleries" involves repetition. Either one makes the same piece repeatedly or one makes a limited "body of work" so it's recognizable to the buying masses. This has been going on for most, if not all of my working life as a craftsman. There are several easy explainations for this but at the root is money.

And, NO, just because it's different doesn't mean it's good. It just means it's different. - Tod
Sorry, art discussions are not my forte.

[iaff84]

Tod,
I would not say it is frustration on this end. I just do not see the apparent void out there in the glass world. If you lead panels (zinc, brass, foil) your work is tagged second class. Hot glass are in one spot, then warm glass are over there and no effort to be just glass, or glass artist if they must. Then the site after site of copycat glass claiming to be artist. Is it bad to just be a person continuing the craft called leaded glass? That is what we do. Just doesn’t seem healthy for glass overall.
I also am neither familiar with nor comfortable talking about art. But I would like to learn where glass fits in the picture. Powerless to change it, just would fill more comfortable knowing where it and I fit.
As far as everything looking the same, in my area, beveling, I see it every day. When studios tell you they cannot include beveling in a commission because the client says it cheapens the panel, you start to wonder and think. May start talking to oneself!
I guess my beveling fits right into that different area you mentioned, at least the beveling I do for myself. So I will continue it, if some call it or I different, well, good.
I am hoping me and art bump into each other some day, may like the fella

[Boris]

Probably one of the biggest dividing walls between warm and hot glass, and traditional stained glass, is saturation and repetition. Stained Glass and its market, was pretty well beat into the dust by foreign imports and blind repetition of copied works done by studios and hobby workers alike. I would almost venture to say, that nothing you could design and make would be original. Someplace, there would be a design that would be close enough to what you made, it would look as if part of it was copied. Most of this work is done by people with little or no art experience or background, and is made because its "pretty" and not considered a work of art. Same techniques, same materials, same pattern books, same, same, same, all over. There is no "expression" or daring to be different. Thats likely why its become a less popular use of glass as an artistic medium. It all pretty well looks the same afterwhile, and any individual would have a very hard time creating an artistic masterpiece, that had not been done before somplace. Traditionla stained glass has become a "commodity" for the commercial end, with "Money" being the prime motivator, and not the desire to produce art.

On the other hand, Warm and Hot Glass, and cold working 3D pieces is still part unexplored wilderness, with much to be found. The round steel piece, with the bevels and steel, as untraditional as it gets, but crosses over to "Art" by the sheer nature of its construction. Different, innovating, expressive. If signed and dated, it could become a very valuable piece of art, if one produced enough of these kinds of works, to allow it to become a collectible. To become "collected" and desirable, the work just has to be good, not perfect, and it has to be done in numbers. One of those round thingies may be desired by others, and may bring a good price, but will never become a collectors sought after piece. If there is only one, or even two, they can only belong to one or two people. This is the only direction or path I see left to anyone who desires to produce art instead of product. Glass is not dead, its evolving. New techniques, new combinations of different media, bold designs.

Pieces like the round steel bevel work, is the future. That is Art..

my opinion from observations and being a "Hobby Class Craftsman."

[Planet Glass]

I have the same impression.

Right now I am working on making flat glass, from blown glass, and also using the pâte de verre technique. I'm making a series of 10 small pâte de verre panels

http://forums.the-glass-artist.com/picture.php?albumid=34&pictureid=506

http://forums.the-glass-artist.com/picture.php?albumid=34&pictureid=507

[iaff84]

Chantal,

Nice work. How do you plan to show these?

I have no idea of the process of making these but I like the out come.

It is apparent that you use many disciplines in your work. Have you also found one area more acceptable to the public than another? An area that you make more money than others? There it is again, money! Do you find your clients appreciate the workmanship necessary to do the different disciplines you do or do they buy because they just like it?

Sorry for all the questions, just am interested in some possible whys.