Inked in Glass with Heather Dawn

Welcome back to Cracked with Chevonne Ariss! Today is the 60th episode!
Today, we have the pleasure of speaking with Heather Dawn, a super talented stained glass artist who splits her time between Phoenix Arizona and her hometown of  New York. Heather began her journey into stained glass in 2015, learning the art alongside her mother. 

Her fused and stained glass work  is heavily inspired by American traditional tattooing and the southwest; The bold black outlines characteristic of traditional tattoos making a perfect match for the solder lines used in stained glass.

Heather’s glass journey, like many of us is complex, where her deeply personal life experience, her grief and joy, is intricately woven in with her personal style.

In this episode, we'll dive into Heather's story and the techniques she uses to bring her striking visions to life. 

Join me as I crack it all wide open…
To see more of Heather’s work her instagram is @heatherdawnglassworks.  And mine is @runaglassworks 

For the glass cutting hack that Heather shared that she had made a video for, she also sent me a photo, I just posted that photo on my website on her episode page, so take a look: 

 For the Patreon page members Heather made one of her super cute painted horseshoes, measurements are about 4” wide by 5” tall. Drawing will be  12 days after  the  release of this episode.

Honorable mentions from this episode:
SW Art Glass in Phoenix
swartglass.com
Anything In Stained Glass in MD
anythinginstainedglass.com
Epoxy
homedepot.com
Canvas
shopcanvas.co
Procreate
procreate.com
stained glass pricing guide:
bradstreetglass.com/blogs/pricing-stained-glass-art
Favorite artists:
Dan Higgs
occultvibrations.wordpress.com
@lady.luckstudio
@obscureglassworks

Transcript

UNKNOWN: 0:00

Bye.

SPEAKER_00: 0:04

Hello and welcome back to Cracked with Siobhan Aris. Before I share my chat with today's artist, Heather Dawn, I'd like to thank the partners who helped me bring this show to you. First up is Handy Hangers, the handiest little hanger for all your metal framed panels. They're pretty great. No more drilling, bending, clipping. They have original and then they have fusible options. They're so nice and they just give a nice clean look. Find out more at handyhanger.net. I'd also like to thank the Stained Glass Association of America. I urge you to become a member, whether it's you've recently discovered the beauty of glasswork or you've been practicing the craft for a lifetime. Affiliate membership benefits include the annual subscription to the Stained Glass Quarterly, a listing in their online membership directory, first access and discounts on annual SGAA conferences, and so much more. Learn more at stainedglass.org. I'd also like to tell you about a very special premium solder. Canfield's Ultimate Wire Solder is designed with the artist in mind. Made by a special process, it combines tin, lead, and other materials to produce the perfect solder. It goes from solid to liquid instantly with no pasty range, no wavy heat lines in your seams, it works faster than ever while running the smoothest bead seam, and it does the job with one pass of the iron. Learn more about Ultimate Wire Solder at CanfieldMetals.com. I'd also like to thank Yakagany Glass. Yakagany has been producing the world's finest art glass since 1976. Have you checked out their selection of Stipple Glass yet? Stipple's waxy, ice-like effect sets it apart from the rest. Due to the translucent quality of the glass, there is a 3D effect when colors are streaked together. This becomes beautifully apparent when illuminated. Yakagini Glass is proud to have replicated these qualities used first by Tiffany Studios. You can see clear photos and find your local distributor at yakaginiglass.com. That's Y-O-U-G-H-I-O-G-H-E-N-Y glass.com. Thank you to Glass Patterns Quarterly. Each issue is full of gorgeous glass tutorials as well as a 16-page pull-out pattern section, most of which are full-size patterns. This pattern section, it just makes Glass Patterns Quarterly so fun. I love this publication. Find out which subscription is best for you at glasspatterns.com. Thank you to Bullseye Glass. One of my favorite things about Bullseye is their very generous volume discounts, available in their online store, via mail order, or at Bullseye Resource Centers. Items eligible include all sheet glass, billet, frit, rod, stringer, confetti, molds, and other Bullseye Thank you also to Ed Hoy. Their warehouse is full of glass from all major stained glass suppliers and manufacturers. They also offer unique handmade art glass from both domestic and international stained glass suppliers, giving artists around the world an unprecedented selection. Their retail and wholesale glass inventory is ever-evolving. They have a wide range of options to explore from fused, stained, painted, blown, or sculpted glass. They take pride in their ever-expanding inventory and are always looking for innovative new products. The right glass on hand makes all the difference in a glass artist workshop. Their warehouse and retail store are saturated with the brilliant colors and styles that they know are bound to inspire. Find out more at edhoy.com. Thank you to Paul Wismat Glass Company, who makes gorgeous, quality sheet glass out in West Virginia. Did you know they also have glass tutorials on their website? They're under the News tab. That's wismatglass.com, W-I-S-S-M-A-C And you should also pause what you're doing and follow them on Instagram. It's Today we have the pleasure of speaking with Heather Dawn, a super talented stained glass artist who splits her time between Phoenix, Arizona and her hometown of New York. Heather began her journey into stained glass in 2015, learning the art alongside her mother. Her fused and stained glass work is heavily inspired by American traditional tattooing and the Southwest, the bold black outline characteristic of traditional tattoos makes a perfect match for the solder lines used in stained glass. Heather's glass journey, like many of us, is complex, where her deeply personal life experience, her grief and joy is intricately woven in with her personal style. In this episode, we'll dive into Heather's story and the techniques she uses to bring her striking visions to life. Join me as I crack it all wide open. Hello. Hello. How's it going? Good. How are you? Good. I'm a little nervous. Sorry, my cat just woke up too and she's trying to get in the video. No worries. We all want to be a star. I totally understand. I did. I was interviewed by a friend like a couple of years ago for his podcast and he came over to my apartment. We did it in my living room, but it was like the headphones and the mics and that definitely intimidated me more than just being on a Zoom call. Yeah. Yeah. The gear can feel like really serious. I've done a couple like tv things and the cameras are so big yeah and they're like scary I don't know I was always like scared of the cameras I'm camera shy yeah I worked a tattoo convention two weekends ago and there was uh like a film crew interviewing some of the vendors and the tattooers and I was trying to avoid them all weekend and they finally got me and I was like I'm only saying yes because I had one and a half drinks and I just giggled through the whole through the whole interview but yeah The camera's in my face. I'm like, oh, I'm just camera shy. It's awful. I know. I think about all the kids now growing up with our phones in their face all the time. And I don't know, I have like one group of friends in particular that are so good about like turning it on and like being super on anytime somebody's like taking a story for like Instagram or something. And I think about all the time that this generation, they're like, they learn that so young to like be like a little extra if they're the camera is out, you know? It's funny. Yeah. I didn't even have, I mean, we didn't have iPhones until I was in college probably. So definitely a different, I remember having a Blackberry like my freshman year of college and you couldn't do much on those. So it's different. Yeah. I know. God, I know. To be, that's such a huge conversation. Like what? I feel like I grew up at the perfect time before technology, right? really took over. Yeah. How old are you? I just turned 34. Okay. Yeah. I'm going to say something to you that people always say to me, you look very young for your age. Yeah. I do get that a lot, but the older I get, the less it bothers me. So, but when I was, yeah, when I was like in my early twenties and I was still getting confused for a teenager, that's not fun. It's like irritating. Yeah. Yeah. I was at the mall once with my mom and I was probably like 23 at the time And we were like, I was trying to prove her wrong about something. And the woman behind the counter was like, oh, it's okay. We always think we're wrong or we're right when we're teenagers. I was like, I'm 23, but thanks. But now, I mean, one day it'll be great. Yeah. Well, I'm actually going to start today's interview with a question from Instagram, which is rare. Usually I get into those later, but at have some more ATL asked what made her go from the fashion world in New York to the glass life in Arizona. So maybe you can tell us a story about like what you were doing in New York and how it brought you to glass. I am, um, I'm from New York. I just moved to Arizona last year. So it's kind of a recent thing. Um, and it was sort of an impulsive move, but yeah, my background's in fashion. I went to FIT, um, for fashion merchandising. So that's what I did almost 10 years. I until 2020. So I was, I was a merchandiser, um, but I worked for a smaller company. So it was kind of like product development, um, of sorts. I had a hand in kind of everything that went on, um, like a little design and, or helping with design and then textiles, picking fabrics, things like that. It was fun. I love it, loved it. Um, but it's a tough industry. I was getting really burnt out at like 28, which is too young to be feeling that way. And I thought about doing something else. I mean, I've been working with glass about 10 years. So I was doing that kind of on the side at the same time. But it wasn't until I 2020, when we started to work from home because of the COVID lockdowns, I was expected to be on call all the time, pretty much because they knew we didn't have anything else to do. And I already worked so much at that point anyway. So I was just, I was really at the end of like enjoying that job at all. And I got moved from kind of my behind the scenes creative position to a sales position, which I pretty much flat out said no to. And they put me in any way. And I'm just, I'm not a, I'm not a salesperson really. So wasn't enjoying that. I had planned, I had my resignation email ready to go. And, um, it was like a Wednesday or something. And I was like, I'm just going to wait until Friday. Cause I was getting paid that Friday and I wanted to make sure I got my last paycheck. And then they ended up letting me go because they let go like half the company. Um, so worked out, I didn't have a backup plan. And then I was like, I guess I'll just try making glass full time. And so I'm going on my fourth year of that. So did you start that when you were still in New York? Yeah. So my mom taught me, she and my stepdad took a glass class together, stained glass class, just kind of on a whim. They wanted something to do together. And so they took that. My mom, I mean, she fell in love with it right away. And I think my grandpa, her dad had dabbled in stained glass a little bit when she was a kid. So I think I think she had some prior knowledge of it, but she really, and I mean, my stepdad liked it too, I think more than he thought. So he ended up building her a whole studio at their house and she got into it fully. Like she started fusing right away too. So she taught me the basics once and I kind of ran with it from there. So I usually, when people ask, I say I'm self-taught, but she did, my mom really kind of laid the foundation. for my love of glass and I had all I mean she has had everything in her studio like a sandblaster of every kind of saw you could need um just three kilns so it was definitely fun to go be able to visit her and use her studio and just learn kind of learn from her and learn together with her because she she taught me only maybe a year after she learned so she hadn't been doing it that long herself either is she still in New York no she actually died recently um so yeah but it's really nice to be able to get to do you know what she taught me every day so it's a nice connection to have with her um but yeah she once I moved out here she was diagnosed with cancer and it didn't last very long so yeah it's been it was hard being that far away I went back to the east coast for most of the time that she was sick but I'm back in Arizona now. Um, but yeah, it's, it's, you know, nice to carry on what she was doing and she, she was a full-time glass artist probably the last four or five years of her life. So, you know, she got to do what she really loved too. So that's nice. And you guys did a couple of collaborations together as well. We have, yeah, she did more. I mean, we have really different styles and she got, she was way more into fusing than stained glass, but we've done a couple of fuse piece Okay. Okay. Christmas Carol. I forget. I didn't watch it. She did obviously when she found out her work was going to be in and she sent me lots of screenshots from it, but it's on Apple TV. So it's like a streaming movie, but that's pretty cool. That's very cool. Yeah. So what's in Arizona? What drew you there? Well, my dad's lived out here for probably 12 years or so. So I've spent a I just wanted a little bit of a change and it's definitely a change, but I miss home for sure. I've gone back to New York like every month. And what part of Arizona are you? I'm in Phoenix, which the best thing is I'm really close to SWR class and like dangerously close. I'm there like every other day. But so I've gotten to be friends with the people who work there and some other, when I was in New York, I didn't really know any other glass art. artist personally now that I'm so close to SW I mean everyone who works there works with glass in some capacity so I have some glass artist friends now in person which is nice that's amazing yeah on Tuesdays we do a little one of the guys Rob he teaches a fusing class and then some of the employees just go in and do like a little open studio time so it's been nice having other glass artists to work with and just kind of play around with. So there's Rob. Who else? Let's give a shout out to the Glass Pals in Arizona. John. John and Rob are the owners of SW. And then my friend Sienna and Jacob, they work there. There's a new girl who I've only met once named Ro. But everyone there, there's actually, there's two Robs. And then Jamie handles like seemingly everything that goes on there too. So yeah, I love them all. I I spend so much time there and I helped with Glasstoberfest last year, which was a lot of fun. I'm sure I'll do that again this year as a volunteer. What's that? It was like a big sale, like an Oktoberfest day, just a one day sale. And I think it opened at 9 a.m., but people were lined up like an hour and a half before that. Yeah, it was like crazy. I mean, I bought a bunch of glass, too, even with my wholesale discount it's still the sale prices on this one day were like crazy I forget it was like$8 for like 12 by 12 sheets of Oceanside it was yeah big sale and people were definitely interested in it and this happens every October yeah last year was the second year they've done it so I know it's happening again this year I don't know exactly what day but they'll announce it at some point That's amazing. Yeah, it was a lot of fun to work and to just be there. Yeah. That's where my family lives is in Phoenix. I was actually just there like two weeks ago. Yeah, for a baby shower. Yeah. It got hot like three days ago. You must have just missed the really hot weather. Yeah, I was actually there on a weekend that it was raining. Oh, yeah. And it was really sad because I was coming from Portland and I kept telling everybody that I'm coming.

UNKNOWN: 16:26

Oh, it probably was. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 16:27

I was like, oh, like I really need some sunshine. I'm going to go to Phoenix this weekend. And then I got there and my whole family was like, LOL, you brought it with you. Yeah, of course. Do you like Phoenix? I mean, you've made such a great little group of friends, but outside of that culturally, do you feel like you love being in the desert?

UNKNOWN: 16:46

I don't know.

SPEAKER_00: 16:47

I love it yet. I'm undecided. I do like it. It's beautiful. I mean, it looks like another planet in some parts out here. It's just a big adjustment. I mean, it was, you know, moving across the country and not knowing anyone really outside of my dad. And I have my dad, my dad's best friend and his wife live out here too. So I do have some, I've known them since I was like seven or eight years old so I have some family friends out here too but it was still a big you know big adjustment and I'm living alone for the first time I always had roommates back home but which is nice I'm not complaining about that yeah what part of Phoenix do you live in um Arcadia I think is oh yeah I think yes I think my niece's mom lives in Arcadia yeah it's some it's not too far from downtown it's actually it seems to be a really nice location for having never, like my dad went and looked at apartments for me when I was back in New York. So I didn't even see my apartment before the day I got here to move in. Gosh, what an adventure. Yeah. Are you doing glass in your apartment? Yeah. So I have two bedrooms. So I use my spare bedroom as my studio. Very cool. How is that working with ventilation? Yeah. Seems fine. I mean, the nice thing is the weather here. I mean, it's almost always like open weather season other than when it gets really, really hot in the summer. And then I have like the smoke absorber fans and my respirator, of course. But yeah, fortunately I could keep the windows open all the time for the most part if I, if I need to, which I'm sure helps. Yeah. Probably not the most ideal situation, but I know a lot of people work out of their homes and hopefully we're all okay doing that. Yeah. I know. I always ask just because I think that sometimes people have like really creative, crazy situations in terms of the ventilation. So I always like to ask, but yeah, I'm sure you're fine with just a window. You're good. I try. I try to take as many precautions as I can. So you're self-taught and your work is, it's very heavily inspired by American traditional tattooing. And there's a lot of like Southwestern style sort of like sprinkled in there And I noticed that you have a lot of traditional tattoos. I do. Is that always been your style with glass as well? Yeah, I started getting tattooed, like heavily tattooed about 10 years ago, around the same time that I started working with glass. And I think the first piece I ever made was the I used the pattern that my mom used in the class that she took, just to kind of like, figure out what I was doing. And then as soon as I made one piece, I was like, Oh, I don't need I can draw my own pattern. turns easily, not easily, but I definitely knew that that was something I could do. And so I think it just, as soon as I made something, I was like the fit between tattooing and stained glass is just so natural because the solder access, like the black outline that, you know, like a good bold tattoo really needs. And just, I think because I was getting tattooed at the same time that I was learning that it just was a natural fit. And it's like, my favorite art form tattooing so other other than glass did you ever consider becoming a tattoo artist no I don't really want to like touch people so much there is a lot of that there is for sure so yeah it's so physical and plus I don't know that there really needs to be any more like young traditional tattooers I see looks like half the half the tattooers I follow are not wanting more people in their space which I get you know it's like there can be a lot of oversaturation and I don't know that I'd be adding anything to what tattooing already has and there's so many like young tattooers that I really admire and so just leave that to them but I get asked it all the time people always think just assume that I am a tattooer based on how I look do you are all your tattoos traditional style yeah for the most part I had a few I started getting tattooed when I was 18 but I had a bunch of like, like a couple fine line pieces and some script, all that's been covered since. But I think that was just, I grew up watching Kat Von D's show. I think it was LA Inc. Yeah. Everything. I mean, it was so heavily like, focused on needing some kind of big, like memory attached to tattoos. And I get it, you know, it's something permanent. Some people do want it to be meaningful. And so I kind of thought that That's how it was supposed to be at first. And then I was like, I don't know. I just want a bodysuit that looks cool. So I got over it. Do you have a full bodysuit? Almost. I have a little bit of space like on the back of my legs left, but I'm pretty close to having only like my armpits left, like kind of shitty spots that aren't going to be fun to do. But the more I get tattooed, the more I see just the bare skin that I have left. So at some point I'll be going for that. Do you have like a long list of tattoos that you want? And then you just, cause I feel like I have like, that's, I have a list of tattoos that I want. And then every time I'm like ready to get a new tattoo, I'm like picking from like my list of what fits where I want it. Yeah, it was kind of like that. I also, most of my tattoos are all from the same person who I went to when I was, this was about 10 years ago. I went with my friend after work one day, we were getting Wayne's world tattoos. So I got party time and she got excellent. Like on the side of my arm, the guy, we just got like, you know, the guy who was doing walk-ins and I ended up, I mean, I still get tattooed by him today. So it was pretty much once I got tattooed by him once, he just kind of hit it off. And so I've been a client since then. We're actually making some lamps together. He makes pottery. So last year I made some lampshades and he's making bases, ceramic bases for them. Oh, fun. What's his name? Thomas Lai. Okay, cool. He's in Arizona. No, he's, he's in New York. Oh, you said you've been going like a lot. I go pretty frequently. So yeah, I just, he just tattooed my fingers like a couple months ago, which is your fingers are not, they're not traditional. Are they kind of like line, like line work, but everything else other than that. Yeah. I just kind of liked the way that that looks. And I felt like it would heal nicely, which it, it did. It's in there. Yeah. I, I have some finger tattoos and they are trying to think maybe, I don't know, maybe like six years old and they, I mean, I've been told this, but like they do bleed like they do after a while. Yeah. I think that's why a lot of people prefer to tattoo the hands of people who already have a lot of tattoos and know how they heal. Yeah. Mine healed pretty well, but with how much I work with my hands, We'll see how they hold up over time. But at least I went into it knowing what to expect. Totally. Yeah. So it doesn't seem like you really stray or you said you don't from that traditional style. And I've only seen that one four piece, like it's like floral panels. Yeah. Was that a commission? That was a commission for someone. I was actually thinking about them the other day because I would like to see photos of it installed. It was for a woman who, I forget the exact story. I think she just like bought her childhood home or a house that, Someone in her family used to own, I forget the exact details, but an interior designer had reached out to me asking about these four open panels. And the magnolia, like pink magnolias, have some kind of... you know, memories for this family. So I did, I did take that as a commission, which was really fun and ended up really pretty, but yeah, I, she had originally asked if I'd want to come out to Vegas for the installation, which would have been nice. I just didn't really have the time to do that. So I ended up shipping them to her, but yeah, I do. I've been meaning to ask them for some photos if they've installed them yet. Cause I'm curious to see how, how they fit and how they look. Hopefully if I haven't heard any, you know, no news is good news. So I'm hoping everything made it safely. But have you done any other installations or just that? That was probably the only thing I've done quite like that. I've made big like window sized pieces, but not to fit in. Well, yeah, I've done one like that. I did. I've done like a Frank Lloyd Wright kind of prairie panel that was in to go in like a basement window. But I like doing like the big framed, framed pieces. Yeah, you actually recently did. Well, I noticed that you went to like a tattoo convention. Yeah. Totally. Yeah. Your stuff is so colorful. like, you know, like bold, bright, loud colors, loud work. You posted a food dog recently and someone commented on the shade of red. And then you commented back that it was Wismac red and that you were obsessed. And I was wondering, do you have a loyalty to just one or like a few glass manufacturers? I kind of use a little bit of everything. When I was back on the East Coast, my mom and step that lived like half an hour from anything in stained glass in Frederick, Maryland. So whenever I would visit them, I would just stock up on glass and bring it back to New York with me, but they didn't carry bullseye there. So I hadn't worked with bullseye that much until I moved out to Phoenix and started buying it from SW. And now I love it for, you know, I like the texture and just the colors. The petal pink is my favorite one of my favorite colors of glass to work with. And I haven't fused as much with bullseye. I still kind of stick to, well, because you can only fuse bullseye with itself. The others can kind of mix like Wismach and Oceanside and Yukohane. So I tend to lean more towards the 96 COE when I'm fusing. But yeah, for stained glass, I've really been loving bullseye just for the texture. I didn't know that, that you could only fuse bullseye to bullseye? Yeah. Bullseye is 90. They have a coefficient of 90. So you can only, you can't mix that with any of the other manufacturers that are 96. Got it. Okay. And even sometimes mixing 96, I've never personally had any issues, but I think sometimes cross, like mixing the different manufacturers that even are the same coefficient can sometimes give you issues, but fusing is really finicky. I mean, it takes a lot of In my experience, there's a lot of trial and error and firing schedules. I'm lucky to have all my mom's notebooks of her like all of her firing schedules. And she took really good notes, like what every kiln was full of and if she liked the results or didn't. And some of that I did with her, but she kept, I mean, every firing she ever did was written down and all the temperatures and how long she held it at each temperature. So I have a lot of knowledge from her. How big is your kiln? Well, I inherited three from her if I had a place to put them and there are three different sizes. She She started with a small one and then small being like maybe 16 by 16. And then she has one that's probably like two feet wide and then one that's maybe four feet. So she's got three different, three different sizes. I'll probably, it's a lot. I mean, I'm not planning. They're still at my stepdad's house back where she lived. I'm not planning on bringing one out here just because they're so heavy to move. And if I end up going back to New York, I'd rather it just be there already. So, but I don't really need three kilns to myself. So I'm going to let, I think my stepdad will probably try to sell two and I'll just keep one. Yeah. Are you, so you're just using the kilns at SW? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I can rent, they'll like rent the kilns out to people so I could fill a whole shelf and they have all, you know, if I want to do just like a small kiln load with a few pieces, they have a small kiln I can rent or, you know, is pretty much as many things as you can fit in any of their kilns you can use. So that's been nice. And it's right down the road for me. That is really nice. Yeah. I was trying to figure out how you get the fused glass to be raised so dramatically on your pieces. And then I realized that you actually glue the smaller fused glass bits on top of like the larger piece. Sometimes I do. Yeah. That's like a little trick for if I'm making a stained glass piece and I want to keep the, it's really if I'm working with bowls, and I want the stained glass piece to have the texture. If you fire it with the little like detail pieces, like little dots or whatever, like that food dog, that has a bunch of, I use bullseye for the main part. And then had I fused all those little details onto the glass, the bullseye loses some of the texture and the kiln. So if I want to keep all that, I'll just fuse the little detail pieces and then epoxy them when everything is done. So it basically mimics like what a tack fuse would be. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's like, it's so cool. Cause you even, you do fuse those pieces. So they're rounded on the edges. Yeah. And then I just epoxy them. So it gives the look of it all being fused without losing the texture that I like from, from the bullseye. I love it. And do you, what kind of epoxy do you use? JB Weld, like a two-part epoxy. That's what my mom always used. So that's what I had learned to use. And I mean, she used to put like she would attach standoffs to big panels that way. She used it in a lot more like in a lot larger ways than I do. But just it's worked so far for I've been doing that for the whole time. You know, I've been using that the whole time I've been working with glass. But I know there's also kind of like a glass specific one that I think is sold at the stores. I just don't know what it's called off the top of my head. But I have the kind where you mix the. two parts together and kind of hardens that way. So that works for everything that is like the ultimate in terms of epoxy. Yes, it does. It really can. I knew how you did that because you post so many process videos. You post a lot of like time lapse process videos. And I was wondering what kind of like camera holder are you using? Or are you just filming? Like, how do you have your iPhone mounted? And is it an iPhone? It is an iPhone. And I use the canvas is what the brand is. It's like a little ring light. I just don't, the ring light part is not that practical for glass because it just reflects off the surface. But as long as you turn the light off, it works just to hold the phone. And then if I'm not filming anything, I'll use the light just as an extra light source. But yeah, it's really nice. It's, you know, it swivels all around so you can get like any different angle or just put it. It's good for like a stop motion because it has a little remote. So you just, you don't have to touch your phone and risk, you know, moving the way you have it set up. So it's like a Bluetooth remote and you can just click it from without having to touch anything. That's really cool. They're advertising to me like so aggressively right now. Yeah. They're not cheap, but it was worth it for me, I think. Yeah. No, you're using it. I certainly use it a lot. Yeah. You're really like it's working for you. Yeah. So you said that you draw all your own designs. What kind of program are you using to draw? I like using pencil and paper, but then I do transfer things to Pro create if it's something that I'm going to use multiple times so that I'm able to just print out for a while I was just hand copying every pattern every time like even things that I would make 10 of I would just hand draw it that many times so I finally got a printer um only like last year probably but that's so that's been nice so now I'm not very good at procreate so I would never like sell patterns that I've drawn on there because I don't know how I can't get nice line I don't know it doesn't I have issues drawing neatly on procreate but it does the trick for just having you know the pattern that I'm laying my pieces on yeah yeah do you since it is a lot of like traditional things that are already out there like you do a lot of panthers and things like that do you just find like tattoo flash or do you reference books tattoo reference books I've also had a lot of tattooers send me some of their favorite references which is always really nice I mean coming coming right from the source to you know the people who I'm really getting this imagery from it's nice that they're willing to share you know what the references that they use and yeah when I I was always kind of not concerned but I always hoped that my work was coming across as respectful to to tattooers and without me actually being one and so far I haven't had any issues with that so So when I worked at this convention a couple of weeks ago, it feels like most of my sales were from tattooers. So that's always nice. And that's really how I started selling probably like eight years or so ago. I was just selling to tattooers for the most part. That's who, you know, my work was kind of geared towards. And then it was just word of mouth from there. But I would still say it's like either tattooers or clients of tattooers or girlfriends of tattooers. seems like it's well, well received. Yeah. I think it's different when it's in a different medium altogether. Right. Especially stained glass is like, it feels like immortal. It does. Yeah. I mean, it's an old, it's an old art form for sure. Even now, I, every time I tell someone I'm a glass artist or if, you know, if they ask what I do, they assume glass blowing first of all. And I'm like, oh no, it's actually like I make stained glass and it always takes people a minute to think. And I'm like, you know, like, church windows they're like oh people still do that like yeah and a lot of people do in a very modern way i have the same conversation i have the same conversation but about the state you know as a stained glass artist but about the podcast all the time oh yeah like oh are you like you know and i'm like no it's not no sometimes i mean it touches every once in a while you know i talk to somebody that does like restoration but not very common not very often i had a ask you at Lindsay underscore, I don't know if it's Delion or Delian. She said, how do you get your patina so black? I was wondering, I get asked this like every day. Okay. It's kind of a long process, but I wash after I'm done soldering. I wash the piece with baking soda. I make like a paste with baking soda and water, use a toothbrush, clean the whole piece with that. And then I put a little bit of dish soap on it And I scrub that. I do this on both sides. Um, and then, so clean it really well. The baking soda helps neutralize the flux. Um, so then I rinse that off, dry it, and then I steel wool and I use the zero, zero, zero, zero. Um, it's like the finest grit steel wool you can get. So it shouldn't, I've never had any issues with it, scratching glass. And I know I've seen a lot of people use the same one. Um, so I still will all of the solder joints. You basically want to just solder to be really shiny before you patina it. So after I steel wool, you want to get all the little bits of metal off. So sometimes I'll, if it's just a small piece, sometimes I'll just rinse that off again after I steel wool. Or you can use like a microfiber cloth. You just want to make sure all the little bits of steel wool are gone. Then I spray it down with quick clean and dry that off. And then I patina and usually works out pretty well. Oh, and I don't, I don't, I think when I first started, I used to rinse the patina off with cold water, which I don't do anything. I don't do anymore. I just, I do the patina, let it sit for just as long as I want. as long as it takes me to finish putting it over the whole piece. And then I spray it with quick clean again. And that's what I use to wipe off the excess patina. And then I polish it. So it takes, I mean, it's a lot of steps, but I do get a pretty nice dark, even finish. It's worth it. You're the very first person I've ever heard use baking soda. And it feels very like, yeah, of course. Yeah. I used to use CJ is flux remover and I would use that in place of dish soap but they don't carry that at SW so I don't know where I probably just googled like flux remover homemade or something like that or maybe I asked someone at SW if they sold it and they told me you don't need it you can just use baking soda it was one of the two or I saw someone else do it but it seems to work just fine as long as you know as long as you get it all get all the flux off. I think having any kind of residue is what will mess with your patina finish. Do you know who Lindsay Thacker is? She's at Luxie Flux. Yeah. She's on the season two and she was saying how she gets all those like tiny, tiny metal bits off of her glass is she uses a magnet. Oh, that's a good idea. Yeah. That's a really good hack. Yeah. Yeah. It's like the ones that are like, it's almost like a little, dish for when you're when you're sewing and you throw your needles in it like sticks to it yeah so it's kind of bigger it's not like a tiny magnet that you have to like it's like yeah no that makes sense because those little the little like shavings of it get everywhere I do it over I keep the like the brown paper that glass gets packaged in I keep that and I just do it on the paper so I can fold it up and throw it away but even you know like I definitely wear my respirator when I'm doing that too as to not breathe in bits of metal but yeah The magnet's a good idea because it really does it like, especially if you have, I don't notice it as much with lead, but if I have a zinc border, it loves to get trapped under the, under the zinc on the sides. So I'll have to try that. That's a really good tip. And then as far as respirators are concerned, I just spoke with Andrea Gazzetta. She's on this season as well. We talk about respirators and the difference between different kinds of respirators. So if you are using respirator for this step, just Just make sure that you're not using the kind of respirator that's specifically for fumes. You're using a respirator that's specifically for dust and particulates. Yeah. No, that's a good point because it is different. And then, okay, I had another question. Your cat has a question. At Phantasma Agoria Glasgow asked, how does she prepare herself for bigger projects? Also advice on pricing. Oh, and she said she's a huge fan. Thank you. Pricing, I was just helping a friend with this yesterday. So that's fresh on my mind. But I got a pricing sheet from Bradstreet Glass. They have a website and they have a whole, almost like a little blog post about how to price your work. And they have a spreadsheet you can download. And that's what I've been using for years. It calculates, you put in the dimensions of your piece, how many individual pieces are within the piece, and then you can put in how much you want to charge per square foot, how much you want to charge per individual piece of glass in the overall pattern. You can put in all your monthly expenses. I can put in my website costs if I have to buy business cards every month, or if I buy them every two months just It'll factor that in pretty much any supply that you use. Solder, copper foil, cane, anything like that. You can put in all estimates of your monthly costs and it'll factor all that in. And then it'll give you your price just... you know, if you want to figure out just how much it costs you to make that piece, that's in one column. And then if you want, however much profit you want to make off of it, things like that. So it's a great sheet. I recommend that to anyone that's been really helpful for me. And it's from, from Brad street, Brad street glass.com. If you Google Brad street glass, it'll come up. I can link it to, to make sure it's easy to get to. And it's just a free, a free spreadsheet. Anyone can download. So it's really helpful for me for staying glass fusing, fusing, Fusing is a little tougher because it's less labor, but you do have to factor in fusing costs and things like that. But for stained glass, that spreadsheet makes it pretty self-explanatory, I think. That's crazy. I've never heard anybody use this before, but that seems like... It's really helpful for me and just to break down. It also helps me estimate quotes for commissions, things like that, if I can have a rough idea. of the size, then I can at least give people some kind of expectation about what they might be paying. So it's a great resource I found. Are you really good at documenting your time in the studio, like writing down how long a piece takes you? No. Me neither. I always want to get better about that because people ask me all the time how many hours went into certain pieces. And I'm like, I don't know, maybe 10, maybe 40. I get lost in what I'm doing and in a good way. But yeah, I'll go into the studio and then eight hours go by and it's like, I don't even, don't even realize it. But yeah, sometimes just posting things in my story helps me figure out how much time it took me to do something. Cause I can see when I, if I posted a picture of everything foiled and then I, it'll show me, you know, like four hours ago I posted that and maybe I was done soldering at that point. So I'll know how much time went between that, but yeah, I would like to get better at kind of clocking how much, especially the larger pieces. Yeah. Which brings us to the first part of her question, which was how does she prepare herself for bigger projects? Yeah. Honestly, not too much differently than anything smaller. I mean, space wise, I do have three, like three tables, workbenches in my studio, but I also have cats, so I have to keep things as neat as possible and try to make sure there's nothing they can knock over when they're running laps around. So space, you know, I just make sure, usually I have to not be working on anything else. And like I have, I've been working on something thing that I haven't been able to share because it's for someone who follows me and it's a big piece like 18 by 24 and it's taking up my whole workbench right now luckily I'm shipping it out tomorrow so I'll have my space back but I'm like I can't I don't want to start anything else now and you know just working in a small space I kind of have to be mindful of that whereas smaller pieces I can work on a bunch at a time but usually for larger pieces drawing the pattern takes me a while because I like drawing to scale and so this is where I mean Procreate would save me a lot of time if I could figure out how to use it efficiently but I just like drawing on paper and grid paper is helpful too. I do like using that, but yeah, just kind of, I think mapping out the pattern for large pieces takes me the longest. Once I have that done, I'm a pretty quick worker once I actually start, but yeah, getting it on paper is sometimes just takes longer than actually cutting the pieces for it. So if you're giving somebody a price when they ask you to do a commission for them, and let's say it's something that's that big, do you just Yeah. Yeah. I kind of can estimate based on other pieces I've made of that size before, like how many pieces might go into it. I don't actually draw unless it's like a really, really rough idea of something. But a lot of times people are wanting something like something else I've already done too, which is kind of easy to give similar quotes. But yeah, otherwise it's mostly an estimate. And I'm just kind of upfront about that. And people are usually fine with, you know, if the price increase just a little bit. I just say it upfront that, you know, it's not like a final cost until I really have a set pattern down. And do you upcharge because it's a commission? Is there like a commission fee? No, I don't, I don't add anything like that. I like, it's, it's always helpful if someone has a budget and I can work into their budget, but I mean, of course it's also nice when people have no, no budget. I've which is always, you know, fun as an artist, but yeah, I don't do, I don't do a commission fee or anything like that. I don't do a huge amount of commissions in general. So I'm not sure it would make that much of a difference for me or make sense to do that. But have you been taking deposits for your commissions? I do. Yeah. Yeah. But even so I think about this sometimes, because even if I got a deposit, you know, if a piece is like a thousand dollars or some And I got a deposit for it, but then I finish and it's not like, you know, someone just stopped responding or something. I'd still be out that money. So I don't know. Fortunately, that hasn't happened to me yet, but I do think about it sometimes with bigger pieces that might not be as easy to sell. If someone decides they don't want it anymore. I'm not sure how I would, how I would handle that, but fortunately it hasn't come up yet, but yeah, always get a deposit. Always get a deposit. Yeah. I saw one of your pieces. It was called Rock of Ages. Is that a reference to the movie? No, it's just like an old... It was some imagery that I liked when I was getting my back piece done. Rock of Ages is kind of like a very traditional back piece to get. And so that's something I've always wanted to make in glass. I just thought it would... translate really well and be like a nice, big, impactful piece. So I'm glad that finally, I finally had the time to do that. And the same person, I made like three big framed pieces in a row and the same person bought all three of them. Really? Yeah. Like my customer of the year last year. And so she's got a really nice collection of some of my favorite pieces that I've done. Where did you find the frames for them? Honestly, Michael's has a lot of really good frames and they sell ones that are open back already so they have like the perfect lip for putting in uh like the piece of glass so that's where i've been getting a lot but i know like thrift stores too i think it's easier to find little like small frames at thrift stores but if i want something big like that and and something that's held together well usually getting it from a store seems to be the best option at least from what i found and then i guess you could take the insert and the piece of glass out and you can use that even as as a pattern to make sure that it's the same size exactly yeah smart smart I noticed in your shop section on your website you have something called you get what you get yeah what is that that I completely ripped off from tattooers um a lot of tattoo shops will have like a gumball machine and you can pay to get a like a turn from the gumball machine and then whatever you get whatever little does is what you get tattooed. It's usually like a hundred bucks or 200 bucks, just a small little tattoo. So I was doing that for a while. I think I had like five or six designs. And so you would order that and not know which design you were going to get. So that was fun. Yeah. People, I'll have to start doing those again. I just was getting so many orders at one time that I had to market a sold out while I caught up a little bit, but those were fun. And it was like, Um, all, you know, it's like a disclaimer that I would pick the colors and everything too. So no one seemed to, yeah, I wasn't sure how that was going to go, but I guess if you really hated one of the designs, you probably just wouldn't buy that in case you ended up with it. But you had the designs on the website. Yeah. So they knew like they'd get one of the five or one of the six, but not which one and not, you know, what kind of glass would be in it. So those, those were fun. Is that how much you charged? Like$100 to$200? I think they're$165. Yeah. That's a cute idea. Yeah. I know Happy Camper Glass. She does those too. I think I just started following her. She's in Portland here, right? Yeah. Yeah. She's really sweet. I was telling some of the girls I work with, I went back to working at a hair salon and I was like, I have like a full other gig like outside of this because we were talking about like... money. And they were like, Oh, we follow happy camper glass and she's here in Portland. And so I started following her. Her stuff is really cool. She does like a lot of Snoopy stuff. Is that now? Yeah. Okay. And she's done some cool little fused dishes too. Um, yeah, she's very sweet, but yeah, I know I've seen her do like a market set up and she had the gumball machine and everything from what I remember. So definitely a really cute idea. Yeah. Back to your Instagram, since you do post a lot of those time lapse processes, videos, I noticed in your comments that you have a lot of people asking you about process and, you know, asking advice and what you're using for this or for that. Do you think you would ever want to teach? I actually have been asked to teach later, starting later this year. So it's not a done deal yet. Um, but I've thought about it before, I guess, having never taken a class myself, I was like, you know, who am I to teach other people, but I've learned a lot on my own. And, um, through a lot of trial and error. So, Yeah, it's been something I've been thinking about. And then I was approached earlier this year about it. It wouldn't start till after the summer because it's so hot here. No one wants to come take classes in a summer where it's like 100 degrees. So it would be later in the year. And I still have to figure out what kind of, like if I would want to teach beginner or intermediate, I think I would prefer to start out with like a two-day class, something a little, smaller and not jump into like a six week course or something, but yeah, it's on my, it's on my radar for sure. Oh my gosh. Everybody stay tuned, especially if you're in the Phoenix area. I do get asked that a lot. Yeah. Or if I, you know, do online classes or something, but we'll see how it goes. I don't love like public speaking. Not that that would be public speaking really, but it would be a little out of my comfort zone, but I think, I think I would enjoy it once I got into it. It does feel that I used to teach workshops and it does feel very different. I hate public speaking, but it, it felt more intimate. Yeah. And I guess when you're speaking about something, you know, that, well, I mean, this is what I do every day. I do know, you know, obviously there's always something to learn, but I feel confident in being able to teach someone. I've taught some, you know, some friends how to make little pieces and stuff as practice, but I think it would be fun. You've shared so many like glass hacks today. Do you have any in mind that you were going to share that I didn't already ask you about? Okay, this one, it's kind of hard to explain. And I've definitely, every time I post a video of cutting glass this way, I always get someone commenting that they wouldn't have thought to do it like this. But basically, anytime I'm doing something that is either all one color, or there's pieces next to each other that are all going to be the same color, I cut them from the same part of the glass so that they're already next to each other, if that makes any sense. I know I do these crying hearts, and I've posted a video of cutting those before, and I pretty much trace the whole pattern onto the red glass that I use for the heart. And then I cut around like where the eyes and the mouth go, instead of... yeah, it's hard to explain, but this way they already fit together the way they should. And there's so much less grinding involved. I don't know if it, it's really more of a visual thing. It's hard to explain, or like if I'm cutting a flower, I'll draw the whole flower instead of tracing individual petals on the color I'm going to use. So instead of cutting individual petals, I'm cutting the petals that are already touching each other in the shape of a flower. I don't know. Okay. I understand because you're Cause then the flow of the glass works better because in terms of like the pattern shift and everything, it looks like it's cohesive. It does. And you just, then you already know that the pieces touching each other already fit together perfectly because they, you know, you cut them from. Yes. To each other. Right. That's a hard one to explain with words. I always try to, and I'm like, you just have to watch, watch it. But do you have a video that you posted about this already? I do. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe you could like, maybe the day that your episode comes out, you could like share it to your stories. Yeah, I can definitely do that. Cause it is, it is hard to put into words what I mean, but for me, it's really helpful. I don't like grinding. So the, you know, the more accurate my cuts can be the better and the less time I have to spend at the grinder is good. You said something, I think I saw the post that you're talking about and somebody was asking if you ever use a grinder and you said yes, because, and I totally, that's, I agree with this. That's why I want to mention it, but you were like, I always use a grinder just a little bit around the edges, at least if I don't need to grind much. And it's just because then it makes the edges coarse and then the glass and then the, um, and then the copper foil will stick better to the glass. Yeah. I think it adheres so much better when the edge has been like roughed up a little bit from the grinder. I don't know if that's just me or I don't know, maybe you can get it cleaner when it's that kind of edge that the grinder gives it. But yeah, I feel like even cause even if you just have a little bit of Yeah, I agree. Are you ready for your final three questions? Yeah. So the first question would be, who is your favorite artist outside of glass? Outside of glass. It's hard to pick one, but Dan Higgs is probably my favorite. up in the top there. He's a musician and an artist. He was a tattooer for a long time. He does sort of like psychedelic, esoteric art. And I've made, I mean, I've made a handful of pieces based on some like art that he's done before. And so his work has definitely been an influence on me and just kind of an influence on a lot of tattooers I see. Like newer tattooers, I can see his influence in a lot of that and just in a lot of my own work. And he, I remember reading an interview with him once or might not have been him by himself, but with his band. And they were talking about not feeling the need to like reinvent the wheel or find something new under the sun. And I kind of feel like that for myself. I mean, I like to push myself, but I also, I'm kind of simple with what I like to do. And I just, I don't know. I'm not, yeah, I'm not trying to do anything crazy necessarily. I just want to be doing what I like doing. And I'm fortunate that people like that too. Yeah. Well, you do it very well. So if it's not wrong, don't fix it. Who's your favorite stained glass artist? Oh gosh, it's hard to pick. I really love Faith of Lady Luck Studio. Yeah, she's definitely one of my favorites. And she also she just has such a recognizable style, I think. And she just uses all these like warm colors and modeled glass and all my everything she posts. It's like all my favorite types of glass in one piece. So she's definitely, definitely one of my favorites. And then obscure glassworks. I'm wearing earrings that she made right now. Little strawberries, but I have a bunch of a bunch of bunch of earrings she's made but she does she does fusing and stained glass as well she's another favorite those are so cute they are yeah she does some like eggs too I have a pair of those fun yeah and then um well the final question would be what are your five to ten year goals I would I mean in like probably unrealistic goals I think it would be fun to have a storefront of some sort and like a studio to work out of that isn't my home that could get a little bit of foot traffic. Right now, it's like, other than just Instagram, that's how people find out about me. And that's great. I mean, I've gotten to ship things all over the world. I sent something to someone in Finland last year, which I probably never would have met her if it weren't for the internet. So I have a lot of glass living places, a lot of pieces out in Australia, which is really cool. But when I worked that tattoo convention a couple of weeks ago, it was so nice to be with people in person and just be able to sell things face to face and talk to people. So as much as I love being holed up in my studio, it would be nice to be out in public a little bit more. Yeah. I mean, honestly, if I'm five years from now, I'm just still able to make a living making stained glass I'll be happy. Yeah. If you open a storefront, would you, would it be kind of like a home goods store where you carry other artists work as well? Or would it just be all of your stained glass? I don't know. I feel like it would have to have other things. I'm not sure financially how it would work to just, yeah, especially, I mean, coming from New York, like I know what the overhead is like and rent for storefronts there. So that's not something, you know, if that doesn't ever happen, I'm fine with that. But yeah, I think it would have to, I think I would have to sell other people's work, which would be fun kind of curating that too. I know Seller Door Trades, they just opened

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a

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shop and that's, I mean, it's beautiful from what I've seen. It's so cute. They did such a good job. They have so many, so many good artists there. And I think they are going to have working space in it too, from what I remember seeing. So you know that definitely sounds like fun but also that's a big a big commitment that I'm not sure I'll ever be able to to do but yeah I mean if if I had to just make pet portraits every day in order to keep doing this I would yeah right I just love working with glass no matter what it is as long as I'm doing that I'll be good I hear that I hear that well I mean I think that like maybe your merchandising will come back around to you you know maybe yeah I could put that put that degree to use again yes yeah Well, Heather, I had so much fun chatting with you today. You gave me like some of my favorite glass hacks ever. And I, I don't know. I just feel like this was like a really technique heavy episode, but it's really important to have those sometimes. So thank you for coming and chatting with me and sharing all that information with me today. Thanks for having me. Have a wonderful and productive day in the studio today. And I'll talk to you soon. Sounds good. Bye.

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Bye.

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To see more of Heather's work, her Instagram is at Heather Dawn Glassworks and mine is at Runa Glassworks. For the glass cutting hack that Heather shared that she had made a video for, she also sent me a photo and I just posted that photo on my website on her episode page. So go take a look at that. For the Patreon page members, Heather made one of her super cute painted horseshoes. I love these so much. They measure at about four inches wide by five inches tall and the drawing for that will be 12 days after the release of this episode. Next week, Have a wonderful week and I'll talk to you soon. Bye.