September Class - Stained Glass in Farmington, PA

This class was a splurge for me. I had been looking for a stained-glass class, and wasn’t able to find one locally, so I opted for a three-day class at the Touchstone Center for Crafts in Farmington, PA

This was more than one day’s drive for me, and I had figured I would take the van and camp on the way and on the way back. I booked the trip months in advance, and in the meantime, Matthew and Angee decided to tag along, drop me off at Touchstone, then continue to Shenandoah National Park for a few days before coming back to pick me up. For everyone, it would be a lot of driving, but since three of us were traveling together, it worked out well.

Matt and I started out from Wisconsin and picked up Angee from the airport in Cleveland. She had been at a conference and had to meet us there. IT worked out well, and we stopped to visit the Cuyahoga Valley National Park after picking her up. Once getting to Touchstone, we checked into my cabin, and headed out to build a fire at the communal bonfire area. IT was a beautiful clear night, and the location was great.

The next morning, Matt and Angee went off on their trip, and I started the first of the three days in class. We had to move at a pretty good pace to make sure we completed our projects by the end of the three days…. It was tough! There were 3 in class. One lady missed one day, so she revised her project to be something different, but the other two of us finished – mine was done just in time.

Prior to the class, I had decided that my design was going to be based off a photo Angee took of me at Rocky Mountain National Park, at Dream Lake, looking at Hallett Peak. I had worked out a way to make it into a stained-glass piece and got some additional input from Isaac the instructor. Once the plan was in place, we needed to make two copies of our design on paper.

One copy was cut up, and we used those pieces as a pattern to cut the glass. The other copy was used to put the glass on and build our piece. Each glass piece was cut to allow for space for the metal piece to fit in between. There was more math than I expected.

Slowly, the piece came together. At Touchstone, there is one building that holds the cafeteria. The meals are prepared by a chef, and all the classes take breaks at the same time to eat. In total, there were less than 50 people at the entire place, and we got to know the other instructors and students at the meal breaks. It was great food, and I never left hungry!

There was time after dinner to keep working on our pieces without instruction, and I took all the additional time I could – I wasn’t sure if I was going to need it at first, but I am glad I took it.

My piece turned out pretty good – I could use some additional work on soldering, and cutting, and really everything, but since this was my first time, I am happy with the result. I am looking at taking another class at Touchstone – maybe a full week this time. I would love to learn more about the wood kiln, and all the other classes they have.

A few of the key take away from the session:

1. A three-day class to create a stained-glass piece is ambitious, and I would do one with less pieces given the opportunity to do it again.

2. Wood kilns are relatively rare, and if they are being fired, they are manned 24 hours a day for several days – the people that do this kind of thing are awesome, and the resulting artwork is unique.

3. Stained glass is beautiful, and it takes a lot of skill and patience to do it, I look at stained glass in homes much differently now.