stained glass

It was a real privilege to join the last session of the class that my grad student Chris McGeorge has been teaching this summer - a truly exciting and experimental class, on public art then and now: C19th England (his area of specialization) and Los Angeles today.  So he was talking about frescoes and murals, stained glass and - well, stained glass.  Today's visit was to Judson Studios - stained glass workshops in Highland Park - and just over into South Pasadena.  We were taken through the whole process, from (computer) design to cutting the patterns that allow one to cut the glass; the binding in lead; the soldering and cementing; the painting; the restoration - really excellent to seeing what one knows in theory being carried out in practice (and, a throwaway remark, still in an apprenticeship/guild model).  Much of this was in a building that was - from 1910 to the early 1920s - the original home of USC's school of art.  Translucent color everywhere one looked ... and many extraordinary, unintentionally decorative corners.