thinned newfragile yellows (e.e.cummings)

The material: Scrap stained glass pieces
The source: The stained glass....store?
The story: Doggies, I still live in an I Can't Paint These Walls world. In an attempt to get around that, I have been trying to splice color into odd spots all around. This stove-side window in my kitchen overlooks things like gravel, the Broadstreet Market (when you careen your neck), and a Honda (always). I am against being able to see two out of three of those things, but I am also insistent on a house full of light through its windows. Stained glass exists for this very reason, and so one evening, my favoriteprofessorandnowdearfriend Helen Walker and I held a thousand squares of color to the light to find our favorites. I picked two to fit my kitchen window in colors that would pick up the table, the cups, and NOT the gravel/Honda. These days, I am obsessed with the yellow-to-green-to-brown spectrum. Be prepared for that when you come visit. The house is smashedfull with it.













The How To Do It:
1. Spend years making jewelry, and you will have acquired a wealth of very thin-gauged wire by the time you want to do this project.
2. Wrap wire four or five times around the center of the glass pane, and then back onto itself toward the top to get rid of dastardly stray wire ends.
3. Form a hoop of wire at the top out of the excess.
4. Make the hoop longer for the second pane of glass to allow for staggered hanging.
5. Use any old fixture you want to hang the panes from. I used a standard wall hook that I found rolling around in the utensil drawer.
The cost:$6 (scrap pane of glass) + $6 (scrap pane of glass) + $0 (wire from forever ago) +0 (wall hook, undoubtedly once belonging to my roommate) = $12.













And now welcome to a segment we call This Person Has Surpassed Me, in which I catch wind of someone doing excellent work and would like to tell you about them. Today's guest is Matthew Murray. His jam is to photograph abandoned structures to both document their downfall and dignify their beauty, specializing in asylums and churches. One thing in particular that I appreciate about his pieces is how carefully and eye-wrinklingly titled they are. Matt's work is excellent and has inspired me to enter dangerous buildings to photograph them. He can be blamed for my death.