Cracked with Chevonne Ariss
“Cracked with Chevonne Ariss” is a stained glass podcast that takes a deep dive with today’s biggest names from around the world in modern stained glass. Artists have a frank and honest conversation with Chevonne about their style, legacy, their losses and wins, their journey into becoming a small business owner and how they didn’t lose their minds getting there. Season 5 coming soon!
Cracked with Chevonne Ariss
Wild Wonders and Botanical Brilliance with Juliet Forrest
Today, I have stained glass artist and glass painter Juliet Forrest join me from Sheffield, United Kingdom. Juliet's work is celebrated for its intricate and so very delicate and expressive depictions of flora and fauna, capturing the imagination with their stunning detail, She’s also know for her masterful use of color, incredible depth and movement, each piece a somehow more dynamic and immersive experience than the last. When planning for this interview and messaging with Juliet jokingly said she only had anti-hacks, but turns out she’s actually got more hacks for us today than any other episode of the season! And they are really good ones you will want to incorporate into how you work moving forward…
Join me as I crack it all wide open!
To see more of Juliet’s work, her instagram is @juliet_forrest_glass and mine is @runaglassworks . Juliet will be sending out one of her cosmic bird stained glass piece to a lucky Patreon winner!! The panel measures 14cm wide x 13cm high and will be raffled on September 1st!
Honorable mentions:
The Worshipful Company of Glaziers and Painters of Glass
Ashton Hill Award
Derek Hunt
Jonathon Kirk
Tom Denney
Chapel Studios
John Piper
artuk.org/discover/artists/piper-john
Patrick Reyntyens/Carpentry Cathedral
Favorite artists:
William Morris
William Blake
wikiart.org
Thank you to this episode’s sponsors:
The Professional Trade Association for Architectural Art Glass
Canfield Technologies
Canfield sets the standard for the Stained Glass industry.
Bullseye Glass
~ handcast glass since 1974 ~
Paul Wissmach Glass Co.
Your Source of Colored Sheet Glass
Glass Patterns Quarterly
Patterns, inspiration and information since 1985 to glass hobbyists & professional artists.
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.
Bye.
SPEAKER_00:Hello, welcome back to Cracked with Siobhan Arras. Today I have the sweetest guest. Her name's Juliette and you're going to love our chat. But first, I have to thank some sponsors. Thank you to Bullseye Glass. Bullseye is your premier destination for high quality art glass known for its unparalleled color variation and consistency. Whether you're a seasoned professional or just starting your creative journey, Bullseye Glass has the perfect materials to bring your vision to life. Find out more at bullseyeglass.com. I'd also like to thank the SGAA 1906. That's how long the Stained Glass Association of America has been diligently printing their publication Stained Glass Quarterly, or SGQ. So if you subscribe to the SGQ, you of course get a beautifully laid out magazine to enjoy, but you also have access to one of the most all-encompassing archives of ideas carefully curated and collected all in one place by craftspeople who, just like you, have a passion for glass. I'd also like to thank Canfield Technologies. Stained glass artists often require a I'd also love to thank Glass Art Magazine. Glass Art is the magazine for the art glass industry. Independent artists, suppliers, manufacturers, distributors, retailers, educators, galleries, and professional glass studios all all look to GlassArt as their definitive source for the best information available. Everything from etching, painting, engraving, and stained glass, diffusing, kiln working, it's all included in its pages as world-renowned artists share their aesthetic and technical information. GlassArt provides information for improving business, marketing, and trade show strategies, and new products that are designed to enhance the GlassArt experience. Go to glassartmagazine.com to subscribe for as low as$52 a year. That is only about$4.30 a month for priceless education. GlassArtMagazine.com. Get into it. I'd also like to thank the Paul Wismack Art and Kiln Glass. Wismack Glass comes in an array of colors, textures, and levels of transparency. Their colored frit is available in over 20 colors and comes in four different frit sizes. And when you order sheet glass, choose from different sizes and thicknesses, two millimeters up to five. And they can also pre-cut a number of shapes. I bet you didn't know that. Wismack Glass is one of my favorites, and I I know it will become one of yours too. Find out more at WismacGlass.com. That's W-I-S-S-M-A-C-H-Glass.com. Today, I have stained glass artist and glass painter Juliet Forrest on the show, joining me from Sheffield, United Kingdom. Juliet's work is celebrated for its intricate and so very delicate and expressive depictions of flora and fauna, capturing the imagination with her stunning detail. She's also known for her masterful use of color, incredible depth and movement, each piece Hi. Hello. I'm like my mom going, oh, what do I press? Oh, I can't make the video start. How are you? I'm well, thank you. Excellent. What time is it there? It is a quarter past
SPEAKER_01:six in the evening.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, great. So this is like last part of your day. Yeah,
SPEAKER_01:so I'm having a little grape juice.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, nice.
SPEAKER_01:Very
SPEAKER_00:nice. That always makes these easier anyway. Well, hopefully.
SPEAKER_01:Hopefully you'll get some sense out of me.
SPEAKER_00:It's so funny that your last, well, it's not funny, but your last name is Forest. And when I think of your work, I think of a lot of like forest creatures. Is that, that's your real name though, right? You're not, that's not like a, it is?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, no, it's not a made up name. In fact, my maiden name sounds more made up. What is it? Because I would have been Jossie Johnson. So I would have been Juliet Jossie Johnson, which does sound quite arty and posh.
SPEAKER_00:It does. But then I got
SPEAKER_01:married. But Forrest is a nice name too.
SPEAKER_00:Forrest is a lovely name. And your bio says that you are a stained glass artist specializing in kiln fired painting and glass fusing. And you are joining us from Sheffield, United Kingdom.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's right.
SPEAKER_00:I have a funny American question for you. How come it says Sheffield, UK, when the UK is like It's like four countries and England is one of them, right?
SPEAKER_02:Yes.
SPEAKER_00:So how come, why wouldn't it say Sheffield, England, UK?
SPEAKER_01:It could do. It
SPEAKER_00:could.
SPEAKER_01:I haven't really thought about it much. But yeah, it's kind of weird, I suppose, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00:Well, it's not weird because I see that often, but I've just never asked before because it feels like it's kind of like I live in Portland, United States instead of saying like Portland, Oregon. You know what I mean? I don't know. Well, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I don't really know.
SPEAKER_00:maybe you guys are just all so good at geography that you know that sheffield is in england and you're like well nobody's gonna think it's in scotland so you just leave out that part
SPEAKER_01:yeah i don't think people get too confused about it so i mean it's not really the uk is not really that big either compared to the us um i mean we think a two-hour journey in the car i was talking to a friend about this the other day i People in Australia and America just laugh at us. They're like, well, that's ridiculous. I've got a friend who lives in Argentina. He says, oh, your people think nothing of doing an 18-hour drive to Buenos Aires. And you think, what? That's just crazy. But,
SPEAKER_00:yeah. Yeah, sometimes you really want to go. You really, really want to go. Sometimes you just
SPEAKER_01:really want to go, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Speaking of that, you're north of London. How many hours would it be to drive from London to you? Not very
SPEAKER_01:long. Maybe, I mean, it depends if you're saying if it's with traffic or no traffic, but the train journey from Sheffield is two hours, 15 minutes long. Okay. Approximately. I mean, the traffic here is ridiculous. And once you kind of hit the ring road for London, the M25, it's ludicrous. You can take an hour to go about three miles.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So, yeah. I mean, I try not to drive into central London ever.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Because it's not a pleasant experience.
SPEAKER_00:Right, right. Do most people drive, though, or do you think that public transportation is more popular there?
SPEAKER_01:If you live in London, most people use public transport around London because it's very good. Most people I know everywhere else drive. Pretty much all my friends have got cars. Yeah, pretty much everyone drives.
SPEAKER_00:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:Mostly.
SPEAKER_00:Cool. And are you from born and raised Sheffield?
SPEAKER_01:No, I've lived here... 24 years now, but I grew up in the south of England. So south of London in East Sussex, which is a really nice place as well, but a lot busier. There's a lot higher density population there, especially now. Yeah, I like it. I like it north.
SPEAKER_00:Is north more considered like countryside? And then as you get more into the southern communities, it's a little bit more city or is it more spread out than that?
SPEAKER_01:It's just more spread out, I think.
SPEAKER_00:yeah
SPEAKER_01:yeah and I live on the edge um so I live on the west side of Sheffield which is pretty much on the edge of one of our national parks the Peak District and it's absolutely beautiful in fact I'm sitting in my loft and I've got a view out and I can see well not today because it's cloudy but I can see a rock formation that is on the edge of the Peak District National Park so we're really really close to gorgeous countryside here but obviously I have all the in Yeah, I
SPEAKER_00:like that. That's how I feel about Portland, where I live, too. We lived in... larger cities and in smaller cities over the last few years. And I feel like Portland has all the amenities and the services that I need. There's so much nature around it. It's like the best of both worlds.
SPEAKER_01:I imagine it being quite nature-y. Are there mountains there? Are there big forests there? Is that what I'm, am I thinking of the right kind of environment?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's very like Lord of the Rings forest, like lots of ferns and yeah, very, very dense woods and And mountains, we have Mount St. Helens. And then we also have Mount Hood. And so you can see those from the city. Oh, is St.
SPEAKER_01:Helens the volcano one?
SPEAKER_00:Yes.
SPEAKER_01:Ah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And on a clear day, you can see it. So, yeah, we got a little bit of everything. And then it's about a two-hour drive to the ocean, to the beach. Oh, cool. Yeah. Yeah, nice. Not bad. Well, maybe bad for you. Maybe you wouldn't make that drive, but for us.
SPEAKER_02:Well, yes. Two hours. Oh, God.
SPEAKER_01:No, I don't mind a two hour drive. It's absolutely fine. But yeah, perspectives wise, it's a longer distance for us UK people.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I think it's about two hours. It might be a little less. Now I'm like thinking of maybe my Portland listeners are like, what is she talking about? It doesn't take that far. Whenever we go to the coast, my in-laws live down in Florence, which is like a little bit further south. So I feel like I never drive like straight out to the to the beach. It might be less than two hours anyway, just to be like, yeah. So you said you're married. Um, hence the last name. Have you been married for a long time? Well, yeah,
SPEAKER_01:but a bit of a sad twist on this in that I'm now widowed and that's kind of, you know, Dave became quite integral to the business as well for a while. Um, and about, it's just over two and a half years ago now he died suddenly. So everything there's been obviously huge up people and change in every aspect of my life so yeah but we were married for 11 years and but together for a further 10 or 11 before that so we got together at university which is a long time ago now
SPEAKER_00:yeah I'm so sorry for your loss oh
SPEAKER_01:thank you yeah it was um Yeah, pretty devastating.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I can only imagine. I can imagine. But do you have kids?
SPEAKER_01:No, no kids. One cat, which is the way I like it. I love kids. I love my nieces and nephews. And I love my friends' kids. But I love Glassmore.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Do you have any family that lives close to you?
SPEAKER_01:Well, again, this is going to be relative. We're talking the distances. So my parents live about two hours away from me in the Midlands. I have a sister who's married and has two daughters and they live in Sydney, Australia. And my in-laws are all gorgeous people too. And I have a sister-in-law who lives in Nottingham and I see her and the nephews fairly frequently. In fact, I just went skiing with her and one of the and I've got a brother-in-law who lives in Hitchin which is down south and he's got two daughters as well and who else who have I forgotten Sally who lives in the Netherlands as well Ed and June who are Dave's parents they live in Essex which is about a four-hour drive so for you guys in the US everyone very close apart from my sister and then my sister-in-law Obviously, literally couldn't be further away, which is a shame. But I'm hoping to go and visit her this year, which would be cool.
SPEAKER_00:Nice. No, I know. He's just like, he's hiding.
SPEAKER_02:Extracting a dog, excuse me.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, a dog. Yeah, but he was barking, so he got kicked out. He was barking very quietly. I think... I could hear it. Well, it was distracting for me at least, even if... Yes,
SPEAKER_02:I'm sure.
SPEAKER_00:We just got this little dog. He's, he's only been with us for about six months. And when we rescued him, the lady who was fostering him, we were like, does he bark? Like, is he like a barky little dog? And she was like, no, he never barks ever. And we're like, okay, good. Cause we've had small dogs that were very barky before. And we were so happy to like be free of that. Like to have a tiny dog that barks at everything that walks by outside.
SPEAKER_01:It's quite piercing. The little dog bark as well as quite yappy goes through your brain doesn't it
SPEAKER_00:yes he and he's so loud like his the actual decibel of his bark is really impressive and he's he's turning into like a barky dog and so oh dear i know it's really bad anyway
SPEAKER_01:there must be there must be ways of training i don't know
SPEAKER_00:yeah we got a couple different we've tried two different ones like a collar that would vibrate or um i think it starts like beeping and then if they keep barking then it vibrates and And then if they keep barking, then it'll give them like a little zap. And we've gone through two different ones and they just didn't work, which is so crazy because he also, he barks so loud, but it just didn't, it like wasn't activated whenever he would bark. So yeah. Yeah, I need to find another one. Buy another one now to find one that works because me just screaming at him like, Bungie! Bungie! Every single time he barks. It doesn't seem to be doing the trick. I don't know. It's not. He probably thinks you're barking back. Oh, he's like, yeah, we're doing this together. We're in this together. You're excited too because you see that squirrel. You like squirrels. I like squirrels. Let's party. This is so great.
SPEAKER_01:We're friends. This is super exciting. Let's bark together.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yeah. And then later I'm going to go poop on the floor.
SPEAKER_01:That is not ideal.
SPEAKER_00:No, he's turned out so hard to train. Oh, anyway, I bet your cat hasn't given you nearly as many problems as this dog.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, I think cats are quite easy. My cat is pretty chilled out generally. Yeah. She's great.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. What's your cat's name?
SPEAKER_01:FT or furry thing.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, that's really cute.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, well, she wasn't our cat. And then she just started coming in the house. And then we thought she was stray because she had fleas and worms and looked really skinny. And then we eventually started feeding her. And then eventually we took her to the vet. We thought we should get her checked out. And she had a microchip. And they said, oh, we just called the owners. You're going to have to leave her here. And we've been looking after her for about a year. And she'd been living feral in the allotments at the back of our garden for about two years and we were absolutely bereft so we left a note with the vet and um saying oh we're really sorry we didn't mean to steal your cat um but we really like her and if you basically if you don't want her we'd like to give her home and then they phoned us up later that day and we were just overjoyed and she brought the cat back so now yeah we'd just given her this silly name um but it's stuck but apparently her her name before was Mimi and like she's not a Mimi definitely not her character so that's how FT came to live with us.
SPEAKER_00:That is so funny. Yeah. I can tell you each one of my dog's names before, before they came into my home. Arrow used to be Jackson. Jesse was Angelica. Bungie was Charlie. Yeah. None of them are any of those things. So I can completely relate to what you're saying.
SPEAKER_01:And have your dogs adjusted to their new names?
SPEAKER_00:Yes. Yeah, I think quite immediately when you're the one who's like feeding them and providing warm places, they're like, I'm going to definitely come to you when you're calling me. You might have nice things for me.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, that's true. Because I don't think cats really know what their names are anyway. But I don't always call her FT. It's FT, Ethels, Sausage. What else? Stupid Cat. Various things. So I'm not consistent anyway, but I don't think she knows her name and I don't think she'd do what I told her anyway. But that's cats.
SPEAKER_00:As long as they go in the litter box, you're good. Yes. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Or preferably outside where I don't have to... deal with it at all.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, right. So she's indoor, outdoor, just
SPEAKER_01:outdoor? Oh, yeah. I forget. Of course, in the US, most people have indoor cats, don't they? But in the UK, very few people keep their cats indoors. They'll just go out whenever they want. So,
SPEAKER_00:yeah. Do you guys have any, like, predators? Like, do you have coyotes or anything?
SPEAKER_01:Oh, no, nothing exciting like that. No. No, nothing that would... Nothing that would... kill a cat or a dog although there's a lot of talk of rewilding in the UK mostly in Scotland and there's talk about bringing back lynx and wolves which I think would be amazing but I think we're a long way off that happening I'm not sure I'm not sure public opinion would be supportive of that
SPEAKER_00:yeah it's complicated because there have been such bad cases or ill ending cases in the past right of people bringing in animals to control one issue and then it creates a host of other issues.
SPEAKER_01:This is true, but wolves and lynx used to be in the UK not thousands of years ago, but hundreds of years ago. We've got a problem with deer, but there's nothing that will eat deer. The deer population is really out of control. They cause a lot of problems over grazing, problems with forestry and things like that. Wolves potentially could be brought back as a natural predator, but of course there You know, there are issues with farming and livestock and stuff. I can understand that. But I think it'd be cool.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And I think they did that in Yosemite. They brought back wolves and they were a keystone species that kept the deer population down. That meant that more of the undergrowth could grow and it had a massive impact on biodiversity.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, yeah. That makes sense.
SPEAKER_01:I think there's a documentary about it on Netflix. I'm not sure. Anyway. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I'll definitely keep my eye on that and see how that pans out. That's super interesting. Okay. So I would love to start talking about glass with you. And to begin that, may I read your bio? Is that okay?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, go for it. I might cringe a bit, but you can't. Yeah. People won't see that on camera.
SPEAKER_00:Okay. I first became enchanted by the medium of glass six years ago and started making stained glass as a hobby alongside my landscape painting and my, quote, proper job. My enthusiasm for it only grew, and this took off as my main medium, with me expanding my repertoire. Repertoire? Do you say repertoire or repertoire?
SPEAKER_01:I would say repertoire.
SPEAKER_00:With an R? Yeah,
SPEAKER_01:I think.
SPEAKER_00:Repertoire of technique. and eventually starting a full-time creative business in 2014. I love the way the texture, shape, and color of glass manipulates light and how light itself brings glass to life. When I first started working with glass, I knew I wanted to learn about surface pattern techniques, the addition of line and texture to create depth, detail, and complexity. My aims are simple. I aim to be the best I can be at what I do and to keep learning and improving the whole time. I do not want to be static and formulaic over my career. I would like to be able to explore many different techniques and subjects and not be pigeonholed into a single genre. Oh, and I also want to enjoy myself at the same time. So my first question for you is circling back to what we were talking about before, but what do you like to do to enjoy yourself outside of glass?
SPEAKER_01:Outside of glass? I love gardening. So that's a bit of a big obsession. I've got plants everywhere in my house. You might not have the equivalent thing In the US, we have something called allotments in cities, which is land you rent off the council for growing vegetables. and stuff and fruit um so I've got I've got an allotment which I'm really fortunate backs onto my back garden oh wow so they just extend it so essentially for the size of the house I've got a really big back garden so I love gardening plants growing veg uh what else do I like doing I love food and socializing yeah and reading I love sci-fi I think that's the main things.
SPEAKER_00:Very cool.
SPEAKER_01:Friends and food and gardening.
SPEAKER_00:That's very, that's, you're living like my dream life. That's amazing. And what is your proper job outside of glass? Or are you just doing glass full time now? Oh, I'm doing that full time now.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. But my proper job, that was, I worked for a charity called Sheffield Mind, which does all sorts of things. But my project was a health and well-being project. where we delivered workshops around things like healthy eating, stress and anxiety management. And then we also took on anger management. So I did training to do an anger management course, and then we ended up delivering all the anger management program for Sheffield. So that ended up being my main role, which kind of surprised me, but I did really enjoy it, weirdly. I
SPEAKER_00:bet it was super interesting.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it was quite intense, but yeah. Yeah, really interesting and really just so great because everyone who ended up on the course really wanted to be there. They were really motivated and they worked really, really hard to make changes in their life. And you could see what, you know, those changes or the impact those changes had on them. And yeah, it was very rewarding.
SPEAKER_00:And were you involved in this organization pre or post COVID?
SPEAKER_01:Oh, pre-COVID. Yeah, that was a long time ago now because I started my business 2014. And that was when I got made redundant from Mind after working with them for six years.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, got it.
SPEAKER_01:So yeah, so a long, long time before COVID. So COVID was fine with my glass because I could just stay doing what I was doing in my little workshop, except not do shows. which I didn't miss at all.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yeah. Tell me more about your education. You started as a landscape painter. Let's pedal
SPEAKER_01:back
SPEAKER_00:a few more years
SPEAKER_01:before that. I actually studied zoology, which you can actually definitely see the implements of that now in my work. But I studied zoology. And then after that, this is really random. I had a handmade greeting card business just because I started doing that on the side. And then it ended up sort of working, but not working enough. And because it wasn't working enough, I studied occupational therapy, which then ended up working for the mental health charity. And then after that, I was kind of doing arty stuff on the side. And it was kind of starting to take off, which just kind of came at the right time, really being made redundant. You know, they were going, oh, your job's at risk. And I'm like, oh, no, but kind of going, yes. And I was really pleased because even after they made me redundant, they did manage to get funding to continue the course. So I went and trained up new people. And I'm really glad the course continued because it was very helpful for a lot of people. But it also kind of gave me the kick up the bum to get on with my creative stuff.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Whereas I don't know whether I would have had the guts to just leave.
SPEAKER_00:Do you have any advice for artists that may be in that kind of like... Floaty space in between and are thinking about jumping into glass full time.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, it's very hard. I think you need to test the water a little bit. I'm not going to tell people to jack in their jobs because financial security is important. So I'd been already doing shows on weekends and entering exhibitions and developing product lines before I left Mind. So I kind of already knew that it had possibilities. So I think I would say do some research and have a bit of a plan before you before you drop your regular job and it does completely change it because there's a lot more pressure there's a lot more different things that you have to do it doesn't mean you can spend your entire time making things and having a lovely time you've really got to think about marketing and put the time into doing that and loads of admin and planning and building your website and all of the kind of more boring stuff
SPEAKER_02:yeah
SPEAKER_01:it just completely changes it and it's not you know it's not necessarily the right route for everyone because not everyone wants to take on that pressure yeah it's totally fine to keep it as a side hustle
SPEAKER_00:I agree but
SPEAKER_01:also go for it if you want to
SPEAKER_00:did you have what was your personal experience um I guess more emotionally with doing something for fun and then, and then having to do it not for funsies anymore. Like having that, like, oh my gosh, now I have to do that. Was, what's your journey been like in terms of navigating that shift?
SPEAKER_01:I loved it. Absolutely loved it. I felt like I'd been liberated. But what I think at the beginning, I would say yes to everything. I'd take absolutely everything on. And yeah, I would end up over committed. And also you'd end up making things that you didn't particularly want to make.
SPEAKER_02:I'm
SPEAKER_01:sure a lot of people have been in that position. Or you, I don't know. I mean, I think a lot of the things were stepping stones to where I am now. And I was happy at the time making those things, but I wouldn't want to make those things anymore. But I definitely, I think, spread myself too thin. Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah,
SPEAKER_01:and not even just commissions. But when I first started, I'd do things like I was working with a particular stockist and they wanted me to produce new ranges of things. So I would produce new ranges of fused glass things or I had a range of jewelry and stuff. And actually, it kind of got to the point where it was like, oh, I'm not entirely happy with these items or I don't think that's really the direction I want to be going in. But... it's it's paying bills and you can't, you know, that that's an important part of the equation and it's how to kind of move on from that stepping stone to the direction that you want to go in.
SPEAKER_00:Do you have any advice for that? Like, are you at a point now where you feel like you don't have to appease those stockist requests or take on the commissions that you're like, I just, no, I don't want to. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I love saying no. I love saying yes when it's the right project, but you know, when you someone asks you something you think that's really not it's just not what i do or i just i'm not now i'm not interested in that anymore and i know quite a lot of people who might do that kind of thing and i can signpost so hopefully everybody's happy you know give pointed someone else and you know in the direction of uh some work and hopefully the customer will be happy with that and the other artists will be happy with that and then i'm happy because i'm like oh i haven't taken on something that i don't really want to do that's brilliant
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. It's a revelation. And you also scratch somebody else's back, another artist, you know. Exactly. Which is great. I agree. So there's a couple pieces that you've made that I would love to ask some real specific questions about. Okay. Be interesting to see which ones you've picked out. I only picked out two. I picked out some, like I did some polls from your Instagram about like different pieces, but well, you'll see. Okay. Okay. So the first piece is from your website. I didn't see it on your Instagram, but I didn't look that hard for it. It's called St. Elizabeth.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, okay. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And it says the description, which by the way, I really love a detailed description like on somebody's website or their post or whatever it is. Like I want to know backstory. I want to know feelings. I want to know. I mean, obviously look what I'm doing right now. Okay. So it says this panel is an adapted replica of part of Harry Clark's window at St. Mary's church, Sturminster Newton. Harry Clark was a renowned Irish illustrator and stained glass artist for in the early 20th century, whose stained glass artwork is highly regarded. The panel depicts Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, the patron saint of nursing. Elizabeth is perhaps best known for her Miracle of the Roses, which says that whilst she was taking bread to the poor in secret, she met her husband, Ludwig, on a hunting party, who, in order to quell suspicions of the gentry that she was stealing treasure from the castle, asked her to reveal what was hidden under her cloak. In that moment, her cloak fell open and a vision of white and red roses could be seen, which proved to Ludwig that God's protecting hand was at work. This panel has been made using traditional techniques of acid etching, kiln-fired painting, silver staining, and enameling over mouth-blown antique glass before construction using lead cane. Acid etching on flashed glass is used in stained glass to create pieces of glass, let me turn the page, showing more than one color. Flashed glass is a mouth-blown antique glass, which has a clear base and a thin layer of colored glass on top. Within that description on your website, you have embedded it in there. What is acid etching? And if you click on it, it takes you to a description of acid etching. So I'm going to read that too, if that's okay with you. Okay. Acid etching is a process where hydrofluoric acid is used to dissolve away all or part of the colored layer of flashed glass to achieve a variety of tones from the full deep color all the way to completely clear. Hydrofluoric acid is very dangerous and rigorous safety procedures must be followed. Various resists can be applied to the glass to protect the areas that are not to be etched. For example, Fablon, which is a sticky back plastic, beeswax, or bitumen paint. Is that how you say it?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I say bitumen. Yeah, I don't know how you pronounce it. Yeah, bitumen. It's like a sort of coal tar, sticky, horrible substance. Oh, interesting. But it's very effective for a resist.
SPEAKER_00:Okay. To achieve the desired tonal variation, a piece of glass might have several applications of resist in baths and the acid. Because the top layer of glass is being removed, it becomes textured and is an interesting and sometimes challenging surface to paint on. If you gently run your hand over the hand on St. Elizabeth, you can feel the texture where the acid has eaten away at the surface of the glass. After all the etching has been completed and the resist scrupulously cleaned off the glass can then be painted on to create lines and add different colors sometimes two layers of etched glass are used this is called double plating this allows a greater degree of color variation when the colors overlap for example using red and blue glass together allows you to achieve red blue purple and white in the same cell of stained glass design if you consider the addition of silver stain which adds yellow and orange tones you can then also achieve yellow or orange, green, pretty much any color you like, making this an extremely versatile, but highly labor intensive technique. Now, folks, I just want to remind you all that this is all within like a description of a piece on her website. So her website's like a fun, it's like a fun little, like I learned so much from reading that, all of that. Let's talk about the double plating first. So two layers of etched glass are used. This allows a greater degree of color variation and the colors overlap. For example, using red and blue glass together allows you to achieve red, blue, purple, and white in the same cell of the stained glass. If you consider the addition of silver stain, which adds yellow and orange tones, you could then also achieve yellow, orange, green, or pretty much any color you like. So double plating, you take two different colors. So
SPEAKER_02:like,
SPEAKER_00:for example, the red and the blue. So one is completely red and one is completely blue. Okay. And so then when you have, we've had a couple artists on the show, we've talked about this with, but how do you let in two pieces of glass?
SPEAKER_01:I'm just trying to think how I've done it. I think When I did it, you see, I don't use this technique now. Oh, really? I've done it once. You know, I did it once when I learned how to do it with Tom Danny, which I was very, very fortunate to have that experience. I think I copper foiled them together first to hold them together. And then you put it in, you get a high heart lead. So there's enough space to fit in the double thickness. And then you let it like a normal leaded window.
SPEAKER_00:Okay. Does that make sense? Yeah, no, it totally makes sense to me. So for some of our listeners that maybe don't know, the heart of the lead is basically like the channel. So a high heart would just be like a wider channel, basically.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so you can fit in a fatter bit of glass. I sometimes use high heart lead anyway, because I use a lot of fused glass now, which can end up being six mil thick or sometimes thicker even. So high heart's useful for that
SPEAKER_00:as well. Is that difficult for you to find, or do you find it just as easy as the rest?
SPEAKER_01:I think Creative Glass will do it. It's less common, but you can get hold of it fairly easily, I think. The company in the UK that make it is called Heaps, and they are in a place called Rotherham, which is a half-hour drive from Sheffield. And I have actually bought directly from them before. So yeah, you can get, you can get ahold of it and they will mill it to whatever sort of size you want, you know, width you want it and stuff like that. So it's quite, yeah, it's not too bad.
SPEAKER_00:That's actually like a really good glass hack. I think for artists that are like, that are fusing glass and are sort of like confused as to how to incorporate it into their pieces. If the glass is kind of thicker,
SPEAKER_01:that makes sense. Yeah. I think there are other things you can do. can do if you haven't got a high heart what you can do is the well how do I describe it so you know the middle bit so if you've got h section lead you can get the heart and you can do diagonal cuts across the heart which then allows you to pull it apart slightly I haven't actually personally done that but I've seen people do it and that can allow you to get slightly fatter pieces in but obviously you don't want to be doing that all the way along you know or for a big panel because it would weaken can it weakens the heart but if you've just got a little bit that's slightly too fat you can just kind of put a couple of little diagonal slits in the the heart bit of the h and that will allow you to kind of widen it slightly that's a good idea hey i did a hack yeah i thought i'm not going to be able to do any hacks because my speciality is making things more complicated than than you know everything needs to be so
SPEAKER_00:yeah you call them anti-hacks in our messages yeah they're
SPEAKER_01:anti-hacks
SPEAKER_00:Let's just add another layer of paint. Right. What kind of tool would you use to make those cuts?
SPEAKER_01:A very sharp knife.
SPEAKER_00:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:I don't know. I mean, as I say, I haven't done it, but if I was going to do it, I would probably... I'd probably use a really sharp, fresh Stanley blade. Okay. Yeah. I mean, it's interesting. We're talking about double plating because in the St. Elizabeth window, there's actually no double plating. Oh. There's lots of acid etching, but there's no double plating because none of the pieces kind of really needed it because I was like, oh, I seem to be able to get all the colors that I want with just single plating. But I did make a coral reef piece when I was with Tom Denny that was about double plating and that was super interesting to make and it's such a complicated process and you have to get the resist on both bits you've got to take account the picture that you're trying to get with both pieces but you're applying the resist to two separate pieces of glass um it's yeah really hard a lot of respect to him
SPEAKER_00:your your coral pieces are so detailed and have so much depth to them so that makes sense to me that they're double-plated
SPEAKER_01:the coral pieces that you're thinking of they're they're not plated, they're fused. Oh. But with the, there's a lot of different fusing techniques within those. I don't think I've got the coral piece I'm talking about on the website. So I think the ones that you're seeing are the fused ones probably, which are more recent.
SPEAKER_00:Is the coral piece that has a double plating, is it on your Instagram?
SPEAKER_01:If it is, it will be a long time ago because that was 2017. Okay.
SPEAKER_00:I can find a
SPEAKER_01:photo I can find a photo and send it to you if you want.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Or how about this? The day that your episode airs, can you post it in your stories for the listeners or on your feed? Yes.
SPEAKER_01:Yes. I will definitely need to remind myself heavily.
SPEAKER_00:I'll help you. I'll remind you. I'll be like, don't forget to post the double plating coral piece today.
SPEAKER_01:Because I have a photo somewhere.
SPEAKER_00:Where did you learn how to do acid etching?
SPEAKER_01:That was with Tom Denny. So I, in 2017, I won an award from the Worshipful Company of Glaziers and Painters of Glass, who do fantastic work in the UK supporting stained glass through... various different awards and scholarships and prizes and competitions and that kind of thing so I won the Ashton Hill award which was all about placing you in a studio for a certain amount of time so you can develop your skills so I was really lucky in that they gave me well I had actually four different things so I had an in-depth kind of advanced painting course with Jonathan Cook which was amazing I learned I'd already been doing painting but I just did it in own way um but this taught me loads of different other techniques and mediums that you can use all sorts of things and I went to Derek Hunt for a couple of weeks which was fantastic uh we did some installation of windows and all sorts of things and sandblasting and yeah he's he's a lovely man as well so that was good fun and I went to Tom Denny for two weeks and that's where I learned acid etching and double plating um that was an incredible experience um Very, very cold. It was January and his studio was possibly the coldest place I've ever been. Like, how do you work? I was wearing all my jumpers. It was super good fun. And then I went to Chapel Studios, which is where I made St. Elizabeth as a sort of journeyman piece, really. Because the idea is that you work... you do some of the studio's work, but they didn't have a huge amount of work that I could do. I did a couple of little bits, but it was mostly kind of complicated projects that they already had people working on and they didn't want me to be working on them. So they said, well, why don't you make a sample piece? And I said, do you mind if I make quite a big one? And they were like, yeah, yeah, yeah, go for it. And so I just had a ball. I spent, I think it was four weeks there, just having a lovely time with lovely people, just using... facilities and making something that I wouldn't have ever made time to make. It was, yeah, a really special piece of work. I think I first did it at... when I did a weekend painting course that created Glass Guild and it was just a bit of, oh, this is silver stain and you apply it to the back of the glass. And I bought some and then just messed around with it at home.
SPEAKER_00:A lot of this stuff sounds very like Bernie.
SPEAKER_01:Oh yeah. Silver stain, you know, it's got lots of warning things on the label. Well, all the paints do, don't they? Yeah. You know, don't, don't eat this, you know, ridiculous. No, it's not ridiculous. It's very sensible. Um, No, silver stain is not that bad. It's not that corrosive. I mean, it's nothing like hydrofluoric acid. Hydrofluoric acid is, you know, full-on mask, don't touch this. I love acid etching, but I decided not to set up an acid bay at my studio at home because it really is dangerous. It's properly, properly dangerous. If you get a 50p sized, oh, what's that in the US? I don't know, like an inch across circle. an inch diameter circle burn. And you don't, apparently you don't feel it initially. So if you have a hole in your glove, you won't necessarily feel that you've got a burn, but what it does is it eats It kind of travels through your skin and then it eats away at, it interferes with your calcium metabolism. So it can eat away your bones. It can give you problems with your heart before you, you know, when you don't even know anything's happened. It's like really, really, really dangerous stuff. So I've kind of thought, I don't know that I really want to set that up at home. I don't have a suitable space that I feel comfortable and safe doing that. But silver stain is fine. It's nowhere near on that level. So where do you go if you want to do any... Well, lots of the bigger studios will have acid bays and, you know, people are very kind. And if you email them and go, I've got this project and I would really like to do this. Yeah, usually you can find someone who will let you use their facilities. And yeah, so it's always possible. It's always possible.
SPEAKER_00:You mentioned that you were a recent winner of the prestigious Ashton Hill Award. I also saw that you were a member of the Freeman of the Worshipful company of glazers and painters of glass?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:How did that come about? It
SPEAKER_01:actually came about quite early on. I was keeping an eye, this is very shortly after I'd started working full-time in, well, actually no, I was still doing my landscape paintings at the time, but glass was starting to take over and the glazers were having an art fair and I just spotted that on social media and I applied and I was too late and I was like, oh, okay, fine and then um someone messaged me and said oh we've actually got a space and we like your work would you like to come along so I did that and I went there and I had a stall at their art fair and then they invited me to to apply to be a member so yeah it's a really yeah it's a fun organization and they have these really amazing posh dinners and there's lots of pomp and ceremony and it's yeah it's quite fantastic you get to dress up and drink champagne, which is no bad thing.
SPEAKER_00:No. No. And you also then are in some sort of like a resource book or online resource for when people are looking for people to do ecclesiastical work. Is that kind of the deal? Because it says it's the Freeman of the Worshipful Company. No,
SPEAKER_01:I'm not. They don't sort of have a website for that's kind of not really what it's about. It's like it's hard to describe, really. I should have thought about it. I think that their goal is about the kind of continuation of stained glass. So they do support things like, for example, the British Society of Master Glass Painters. And they've got things like the stained glass repository where they go and rescue old stained glass. But I don't think they have their members on a website per se, but they will always, you know, if someone got in touch with them and said, oh, I've got this project, this restoration project do you know anyone who can help they would absolutely they would know who to signpost to
SPEAKER_00:yeah
SPEAKER_01:does that make sense
SPEAKER_00:yeah it does it totally does all right the next piece I wanted to ask you about is sea serpent and wave Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:That was fun.
SPEAKER_00:It says, this round window depicting a sea serpent and wave was designed for a kitchen and inspired by the shoal of glass fish surrounding the window and by the sea serpent from Norse mythology Jormungandr? Jormungandr? Yeah, I have no
SPEAKER_01:idea how you pronounce that. No idea. Sorry. Can't help.
SPEAKER_00:The panel has been made using fused glass and English antique glass with several layers of traditional glass painting, staining and enameling over the top. The panel has been encapsulated in a sealed double glazing unit. What does that mean?
SPEAKER_01:It just means that it's got protective glazing on the outside and the inside.
SPEAKER_00:Okay. And
SPEAKER_01:it's sort of been sealed. So it's like a sandwich, but with little air gaps. And it's quite popular in the UK. I think a lot of stained glass artists don't like doing it, but a lot of customers like it because then you get the insulation and it's easy to clean and stuff like that. And
SPEAKER_00:how is it
SPEAKER_01:sealed? So it's airtight? So you've got around the outside of the panel, you use Y-section lead and then they sandwich the sort of stalk of the Y with two glazing bars and with, I don't know, they must use some sort of adhesive, I don't know what, and then they stick the inner and outer panel of... sort of the big piece of glass to the outside of that and then put some sort of tape around the edging. I don't exactly know because I just give it to a company that do that.
SPEAKER_00:Okay. And is that what most stained glass artists do is that they outsource that part of it?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Most stained glass artists wouldn't do that themselves. I don't know anyone who does it themselves. In fact, a lot of stained glass artists don't like that to be done to their windows at all.
SPEAKER_00:Is the glass on the outside, is it like have any sort of like uv protectant i don't think so no
SPEAKER_01:but i don't think it needs it i mean you know not if you install stained glass without it it doesn't have any uv protectant and the the paint doesn't require it it lasts you know centuries
SPEAKER_00:Okay. Yeah. I mean, yeah, that makes sense. It's so funny that we were talking about how you have only anti-hacks because I actually did find some hacks in your Instagram. Oh, first one. Yeah. I actually, I do remind me of those three. Yes. All right. The first one was a photo that you posted January 22nd of this year of leeching. I love this stuff. So I'm festooning my Oak branches with it. This is the first layer of painting done with a dip pen and oil medium. there will be at least one layer of vinegar shading too, which will add bark texture and really make the leech and pop. So that's the hack, right? Is to make bark texture with vinegar shading. Can you tell us more about vinegar shading?
SPEAKER_01:Well, it's just doing a matting layer. So you would just apply, yeah, a vinegar-based thin layer over the whole piece of glass. And then when it's dry, you can brush it away with a scrub. So you kind of expose the areas that you want to be pale
SPEAKER_00:so when you say a vinegar based paint is that what you said vinegar based
SPEAKER_01:paint yeah so yeah so the powder paint uh instead of mixing it with oil like for the dip pen it would be mixed with um vinegar and a little bit of gum arabic to whatever consistency you want it
SPEAKER_00:and then when you wipe it away it kind of looks like bark
SPEAKER_01:well it depends how you let it dry first let it completely dry and then you just use a dry brush to kind of brush it off the bits that you want it to be light and depending on the type of brush you use you could you could stipple it for example or if it's a sort of quite a stiff brush you might get a more rough effect and it also depends how much gum arabic you put in the paint as well because that affects how much the powder adheres to the glass and how hard you have to use the brush against it and that can affect the effect if that makes sense that makes sense but for me the real hack was discovering the dip pen because I used to paint all of my lines with a brush and that's very time-consuming very difficult to get a really thick you know fine accurate line but discovering the dip pen yeah I think that's gonna well it makes my life easier anyway
SPEAKER_00:yeah Is there like a lot of different kinds of brushes that different glass painters, like if I ask you, what kind of brushes do you like to use? Is your answer pretty much likely going to be the same as everybody else? Or what kind of brushes do you use?
SPEAKER_01:Well, there'll definitely be a lot of commonality. So to do a matting layer, for example, you'll use a flat applicator. I don't know what kind of hair that is, but it's kind of a wide-ish brush with quite soft bristles that just loads, loads of paint on the brush so you can apply it and get a nice general thick layer and then you would use a badger brush to make it nice and even. So those will be, everyone will use those. And then tracing brushes, pretty much everyone will use a tracing brush. But some people like the really long rigger brushes. I can't go on with those. They're quite good for doing really long lines if you're doing them, but it doesn't suit me. So I use a slightly shorter tracing brush. And then for scrubbing away, dry paint, I think people use all sorts of things. people will use like paint brushes that for oil painting and you can kind of shape them with using sandpaper um to make them the kind of shape you want or you can buy specific what they're called scrubs that are kind of quite hard bristle brushes that are quite good for stippling or brushing away um or even skewers i heard um i can't remember who's when it was they were using porcupine quills which i think i might invest in because that's sounded quite good oh it was Ellen Van Dyke
SPEAKER_00:yes it was yeah yeah and wasn't Derek Hunt's name mentioned in that as well yes I think
SPEAKER_01:so he pops up everywhere yeah hi Derek if you're listening
SPEAKER_00:I hope he's listening hi Derek uh yeah I think that he she he uses uses them as well or something like or she got the idea from him or I think she was involved in that somehow. I don't, I have to, I had, I'd have to go back and listen to don't quote me.
SPEAKER_01:No, I think it's, it was something, it was almost like this legendary story of he used to go to the zoo and ask for porcupine quills.
SPEAKER_00:Yes. Something like that. Yeah. That sounds right.
SPEAKER_01:And the rest of us will just buy them from a shop.
SPEAKER_00:Right. So boring. I know. I know. It's so true. Um, It's so, it's so funny. Cause like, as you're like saying all these things, I'm like taking notes and I'm like, Oh, I wonder if I can find that online to, to put a link to it. And I'm thinking, I wonder if Amazon will have that. And I kept thinking that with every kind of brush you mentioned.
SPEAKER_01:Amazon have got everything. Of
SPEAKER_00:course they'll
SPEAKER_01:have porcupine quills.
SPEAKER_00:They really do. Okay. The next hack is you posted on January 12th, a cute little sunset piece. You can never tell exactly how the fusing will turn out because I stack an overlap all the tiny pieces of glass to create movement when it melts together. I thought that was a great hack for fusing glasses to stack the glass to create movement.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. Yeah, I hadn't thought of that as a hack.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Well, the glass you were using too was like super transparent so you could really see like the layers of it.
SPEAKER_02:The
SPEAKER_01:glass for that was colored from English antique glass. So just a byproduct where of their cylinder glass or flat glass making and they don't make it anymore so I'm like it's so precious even this waste product I'm like oh I can't use it especially the pinks because the pinks are somehow even more precious and glorious
SPEAKER_00:yeah so yeah that must have been even scarier then because what I feel like with when you're melting the glass you never know like it's a little bit more of a gamble in terms of how it's going to turn out I mean you've been doing it long enough and you're you're very good at what you do so I think that there's like a little less of a guess as to if it's going to work or not but I can imagine there's always like oh god what's it going to look like when I open the kiln
SPEAKER_01:yeah and with that because you're stacking you're trying to leave gaps and then stack in some areas and yeah to allow some bits of glass to sort of melt and move into the gaps it's quite hard to judge whether you've got the right thickness and you might do it too thick and then all of the you're trying to make say nine separate sort of blanks in one go and they might end up melting together or you you might if you did it far far too much you might end up it melting so it sort of falls off the kiln shelf which you don't want because then you can damage your kiln um except I've got so much dust at the bottom of mine I don't think it would stick so that's yeah that's what I'm saying it's not because I'm lazy and never clean it out um So yeah, it's quite hard to judge whether you put enough in and sometimes you end up with holes and then you have to refire filling the hole, but it never looks as good. So yeah, it's always like, is that enough? I don't know. Yeah. That's slightly too much than too little.
SPEAKER_00:Maybe that's like a kiln hack. It's like, just let the dust gather and then that way you're protecting the bottom of your kiln.
SPEAKER_01:It's true because little bits sometimes ping off and they never stick now because there's so much kiln paper dust that it just protects
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, I'm here to support you. Okay, the next one I saw, I think it's actually my favorite because this is for everybody. I don't know when you posted it, but it said the photos were taken with tissue paper behind to diffuse the glass. Otherwise, it's impossible to get even exposure. So it's just like a panel that you photograph, but you put tissue paper behind it, which I was like, oh, like we can all do that.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. That's this recent one, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I think so.
SPEAKER_01:They're my absolute mammoth marathon that I've been making since May last year. So yeah, I was like, usually I would use frosted Perspex, which is a great diffuser. Or I mean, it's nice to have natural light, but you can't get a decent photo here because you've got landscape in the bottom half of the panel. So it'd be underexposed and then way overexposed at the top. So I usually use Perspex, but my piece of Perspex is too small. And I wanted to take the photo now. Now I want instant gratification. I've spent nine months making this thing and I want to see what it looks like all together. But because I don't have the space, I can't, I can only photograph the individual panels. So yeah. So tissue paper, blue tacked against the window does a reasonable job. It's so brilliant.
SPEAKER_00:It's a hack. It is a hack. I mean, we all have to photograph our work. We all struggle with photographing our work. And this is like such a Such a brilliant, really affordable little hack. I love it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. I think it does make the light flat like any diffusing layer. You won't see the sparkle. Like, you know, if you put tissue paper behind or any diffusing layer behind antique glass, you won't see that gorgeous movement. Yeah. And it is the same with any glass, but it does allow you to get a decent photo if you've got, yeah, but kind of like with even exposure over the whole panel.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. I love it. Okay, so you're silver staining, you're enameling, you're acid etching. Is there anything else? Did I miss anything?
SPEAKER_01:Well, fusing. Fusing
SPEAKER_00:is really
SPEAKER_01:my main thing now. I do fusing and then painting over the top. I think fusing has allowed me to kind of get that richness and depth. It's very different to acid etching, but it kind of allows me to satisfy that multicolor thing in one piece of glass. Would
SPEAKER_00:you say that those are your two most used techniques are fusing and enamel?
SPEAKER_01:Fusing and painting. I generally mostly use just black paint. I don't use much enamel paints at all.
SPEAKER_00:So the enamels are the colors.
SPEAKER_01:So I get most of my color through fused glass using frits or chunks or nuggets or whatever, or pre-made pieces. And then I'll paint over the top, mostly using black. Okay. Occasionally, I will use a little bit of enamel. In this recent window, I have got some enamel, particularly in the background bit, which is mostly black and white. But I think there's a goldfinch bird and there's a little mouse and a couple of butterflies I've used enamels on. But I hate using enamels.
SPEAKER_00:They're tricky?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it's really tricksy. And, you know, I have had... Pieces of work where you've maybe got five or six layers of work already in them. And then you put the enamel on. First layer's okay. You do another layer with a different color. And that layer reacts weirdly. And it's ruined that piece entirely. And you're like, oh, God, that's seven hours of work. I've got to redo. And, yeah, you just, it's very, I find it unpredictable. But maybe it's just because I'm not that experienced with enamels.
SPEAKER_00:Now, I feel like I just learned something new because you're saying that colored paint is called enamels, but black paint is not?
SPEAKER_01:Well, black paint, we get the vitreous paints, which are things like the Royce Tracing Black, Tracing Black Best, and you can get browns. There's a lot of browns, red for flesh. And they get fired at a slightly higher temperature than a lot of the enamels, which are basically ground up, finely ground up glass with a few extra fluxes and things in. So the enamels tend to be brighter colours, so blues, pinks, greens, yellows. Although I don't know why you would use yellow because silver stain, I find so much better.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so they're slightly different, but they're not that different in how you would apply them or anything. So the difference is slightly academic, really. But so interesting. There's a lot of nuance in glass painting.
SPEAKER_00:You had a show recently. It was for the British Glass Biennial. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that was fun. Yeah, it was the 2022. Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Time flies. I
SPEAKER_00:know. How do you say this? Gorgonian? Yes,
SPEAKER_01:that's right.
SPEAKER_00:Gorgonian Paradise. Lightbox is part of the International Festival of Glass flagship exhibition, the British Glass Biennial. Biennial? Yeah, or
SPEAKER_01:biennale, biennale, I don't know.
SPEAKER_00:How did you say it? Biennale, is that right? Biennale. That's way prettier. I like that. Let's say
SPEAKER_02:biennale.
SPEAKER_00:Biennale. This piece won the Glass Society's Best Newcomer Award. There were some smaller pieces also exhibited in the shop area. This was from August 26th through the 1st of October at the Glass House. And that was the coral piece, but not the coral piece I thought it was, but it was a very large coral piece.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:But not the double-plated
SPEAKER_01:one. Not the double-plated one, no. It was made with fusing techniques and then painting over the top, which is kind of how I do it now.
SPEAKER_00:Did you have to do any research for what lives in coral to do these pieces? Well,
SPEAKER_01:yeah, I've done quite a lot of diving, so... That combined with zoology and I just love animals and I love coral reefs. I love coral reefs so much. And I've always wanted to make a coral reef. And it was only kind of when I discovered the sort of set of techniques with fusing that made me think, oh, actually I can kind of do it justice. and so yeah so I kind of wanted to do coral reefs as soon as I started doing glass but yeah so yeah a little bit of research is required but quite a lot of the time I'll do like I'll do the first fuse layer and And you kind of don't have to be that specific because with coral, you get it with almost any shape. So you can put all sorts of things in there. And then once it comes out, you can let the little, see what's happened in the kiln and let the little shapes dictate what that coral is going to be like. But yeah, if I want to do a specific species of fish, I do want to get that accurate. So I will look at pictures and draw that properly and plan it properly and then allow other areas to be a bit more chancy, if you like.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, it's quite literally like alive. It's so the depth and the detail are in the color, the vibrancy, just all of it is so wonderful. And you can really get lost in it. Like if you just, if you keep zooming in and finding all the little secrets that you put in there, it's beautiful.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. I mean, that's the idea. I like, I like things where it has an impact immediately, but then you can keep looking and see other little details that make you go. oh there's that oh yeah that's kind of yeah I kind of like that so I like putting that into all my work and I've done that for the recent the recent large piece as well with the tissue paper um there's loads of little tiny insects and all sorts of things in there that kind of keep you looking
SPEAKER_00:you really get a bang for your buck. You might see something on there. You buy a piece and you might discover something down the road that you didn't even know was there. Yeah, I like that idea. You do a lot of pieces that are... organic shapes inside, but also like the shapes of the pieces themselves are very organic. You recently did one that was sort of like a spiral shape and had some birds flying in it. How are you framing those? Is it cane or how are you bending it?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I use lead cane. How am I bending it? With great awkwardness and a bit of swearing. Yeah, the spiral was awkward. I had to, there were two joins. So I made the spiral it as a single piece and then I painted it as a single piece and then I thought oh god how am I going to deal with this and I ended up cutting it so there were two joins and I leaded up to the joins and then I thought I don't want the joins to be all kind of weak so behind the joins I've reinforced with brass rod that I've bent the shape of the edging lead and So that's an anti-hack for you. I mean, I could have just drilled holes in it and hung it with the raw edge, but I like the way the lead kind of gives it a little bit of extra weight and darkness around the edge of the piece.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's gorgeous.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, thank you. That's going to Australia.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, wow. Yeah, which is cool. Do you get nervous about packing and shipping pieces? Yes. Yeah. So do you. Yeah, I haven't done it in a long time, but yeah, for sure.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I mean, that's not a massive piece. I'm pretty confident about packing for pieces that size, but it is always the whole, you just, yeah, you just hope it's going to arrive and not get lost somewhere. And you hope you filled out all the forms correctly and everything. And you hope the customer doesn't get charged tax twice and all of that sort of thing if it's international.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I feel like that's more stressful sometimes than the actual packing of the piece is the paper. Like you want to make sure you label everything properly to go through customs and not get stuck somewhere, come back to you, get lost. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. I had once I had a big bowl that I was selling at half price because I was wanting to get rid of those lines and not do those anymore. Big bowl got sent to the US. I think I sold it for about 45 pounds. The post was probably about the same again so it went all the way there and then it got sent all the way back to me and it was my mistake I can't remember what mistake I'd made and I felt so bad and I was like I just sent it out to the customer again and that was like about a hundred dollars again shipping oh
SPEAKER_00:gosh
SPEAKER_01:and I think I just got one number wrong in the in the postal code and it went to the apartment block but it didn't go to his apartment
SPEAKER_00:oh
SPEAKER_01:gosh it's like oh my god
UNKNOWN:you
SPEAKER_00:That gives me anxiety just thinking about it, just hearing you say
SPEAKER_01:that. It was a well-traveled bowl and I'd obviously packed it well because it was quite fragile and it eventually got to the customer and he was really happy. I was like, oh, that's great. Yeah, I've lost 50 quid on that, but that's fine.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, you're like, I hope you're happy with it because I paid you to make it. You paid him.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, but to be fair, it wasn't his fault at all. So my mistake. It's fair enough.
SPEAKER_00:Well, Juliet, are you ready for your final three questions
SPEAKER_01:oh god no no they're impossible questions impossible questions
SPEAKER_00:yeah okay go and ask them okay first one is who is your i'll start with the i think this is the easiest one who is your favorite artist outside of glass
SPEAKER_01:outside of glass okay well it's not an easy question I mean, there are so many. And also, I'm not massively well educated. But I think I'm definitely very influenced by William Morris and the arts and crafts movement. And also, I think impressionists as well. So I do like Monet, Van Gogh, all of that sort of thing. But I don't know, so many. There's so many. William Blake. Yeah. Yeah, okay. Yeah, it's really hard.
SPEAKER_00:I think it's like the easiest question because... I think sometimes when I ask, who's your favorite stained glass artist? There's a lot of like, all of a sudden, like politics get involved where you like, don't want to leave out a friend and you don't want to like, you, you don't want to be here all day, but you don't want to leave anybody out. And so.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. I'm already going through that in my head. Yeah. Literally everyone.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yeah. You should start a podcast so that you can talk to them all.
SPEAKER_01:No, that's not for me. I'll leave that to you. Okay.
SPEAKER_00:So is that, is that. that the final answer is everyone? Well,
SPEAKER_01:I mean, I will say big influences on my work, I think, would be Harry Clark, Tom Denny, and also I really like John Piper. And if they, people in the UK might know of Coventry Cathedral. I love the windows in Coventry Cathedral. They're post-war, so they're quite, they're fairly modern windows. But they're just joyful, full of colour and movement. And they're just lovely. So there's Patrick Rentians and John Piper collaboration. Yeah, and I do love Harry Clark as well. Yeah. That is just jewel-like, the color and the detail and the patterning. It's, yeah, just beautiful. But there's so many other people as well. There's so many other people. And now I'm into the whole, do I start the list of people thing? I haven't, well, I haven't even made a full list, so I'm scared of leaving people out.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, you don't have to.
SPEAKER_01:All my lovely glass buddies, all my glass can, they'll know who I'm talking about.
SPEAKER_00:There's a lot of talented folks out there it's really hard I recently did an interview and I was asked who my favorite artists are and I already have different answers for it so it's like it's evolving so we'll just say yeah for everybody we know it's it's the answers are always evolving I
SPEAKER_01:mean it could turn into an Oscar speech couldn't it
SPEAKER_00:yeah yes okay then the final question is what are your five to ten year goals
SPEAKER_01:okay again that's not an easy question I did write some things down what do I write down I'd kind of like to find my direction a bit more and I think people probably think I already have a direction maybe I do but kind of more going that way get more work-life balance that's a big goal and I think a lot of self-employed people will be in the same boat you're just always saying yes to projects and there's never enough time and you always feel like you're on a hamster wheel always running to catch up and I want to have time to relax and time to do the other things and then feel like I'm giving projects my all and yeah just just keep on doing what I'm doing really making a living doing something I love which is Really, that's always been the goal.
SPEAKER_00:That's a beautiful goal. It's the only goal. It's the only goal.
SPEAKER_01:What's the point? What's the point in life? Enjoy it.
SPEAKER_00:That's very true. And we all have a difficult relationship with work-life balance. I don't think I've come across any stained glass artists that are really good at that. No.
SPEAKER_01:No, probably not. It's always going to be a battle, I think, but that's okay.
SPEAKER_00:Well, Juliette, I deeply admire artists who paint, especially those who can create such realistic detail and especially utilizing and combining so many classic techniques. Thank you for letting me ask you all these questions today for Cracked. It truly was such an honor to chat with someone so talented. Have a wonderful and productive day in the studio today, and I'll talk to you soon.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, thank you. It's been really nice chatting with you as well. I was a bit nervous, but I seem to have waffled on.
SPEAKER_00:You did an amazing job. Well, thank you. Thanks for having me.
UNKNOWN:Bye.
SPEAKER_00:To see more of Juliette's work, her Instagram is at Juliette underscore forest underscore glass. That's J-U-L-I-E-T F-O-R-R-E-S-T G-L-A-S-S and mine is at Runa Glassworks. Juliette will be sending out one of her cosmic bird stain glass pieces to a lucky Patreon winner. The panel measures about 14 centimeters by 13 centimeters and the drawing for that will be 12 days after the release of this episode. Next week, I'll be chatting it up with Tom Fruin, one of two Brooklyn artists this season. Till then friends, thank you so much for listening and I'll talk to you next week. Bye.