Vitreosity on Tumblr

In looking at different options for expanding Vitreosity, I've created a Vitreosity on Tumblr page. I'm not at all sure how it will develop, but here goes...

Screenshot of Vitreosity on tumblr

Temporary blog for Vitreosity

I'm having some technical problems with my blog Vitreosity. You can still see (most) old posts, but I cannot create new content there for now, and the search function is down. I hope to have the situation fully resolved in a few months, if not sooner. I may or may not be changing the blogging software I use. I figure as long as I have this blog as a bridge I can take my time and get the main blog done right. Sorry for the inconvenience.

In the meantime, at this blog, you can leave comments!

Johan Thorn-Prikker: Jugendstil to Abstraction

Today was the last day for an exhibit I just heard of... today.

Johan Thorn Prikker - Mit allen Regeln der Kunst. Vom Jugendstil zur Abstraktion
rough translation -
With All the Tricks of Art. From Art Nouveau to Abstraction, at the Museum Kunstpalast, Dusseldorf, Germany. All of the material I'm linking to is in German and German only, so maybe it's not too surprising that the word hasn't spread too quickly to the USA.


Ecce Homo, 1913, Kenstmuseen Krefield

I've mentioned Thorn Prikker here before (Johan Thorn-Prikker Video - 2007 and Thorn Prikker Picasa Pix - 2008) and noted that I tend to lean toward the Jugendstill Thorn Prikker more than the Abstraktion Thorn Prikker. What I can see of the exhibition on the web just reinforces that.

Make sure to download the very nice pdf file that is a kind of travelogue of Thorn-Prikker sites. Auf den Spuren von Johan Thorn Prikker - Kunstroute
In the footsteps of Johan Thorn Prikker - Art Route The file is 29 pages long, with a fair number of images, all making up a tour of Thorn Prikker glass sites. Very interesting.

Here is a link to a video walkthrough of the exhibit. I wish there were more of this on the web, giving at least a rough approximation of how the layout worked and what was exhibited.
Mediathek - kultiversum video on Thorn Prikker Exhibit

The name of the video is given as "Hindu-Epos im Treppenhaus", translating at Hindu Epic in the Stairwell. Is that a mistake? Mistranslation? Odd German bit of humor? I have no idea. But it is an interesting video.

Below the fold is a Google Translate German-to-English version of the main Thorn-Prikker exhibit page...

Watching Eyes Hidden Cat

Original sketch by Gwyneth- 3¾" by 4"

I spent some of the recent winter break helping my 11 year old daughter Gwyneth create this stained glass panel. She was the designer and I was merely the fabricator. Wonderful experience, and I love the result.

 
 full story below the fold...

Transforming to halftone screens in Photoshop

I've posted a new video on YouTube. It's my first attempt at screencasting, which is when you record video of what you are doing on the computer screen, basically video screen capture. The video is sort of a prequel to my Thermal screenprinting post from last year. This is the photo that is transformed.

That's my Gwyneth at age 1.



This is the image as transformed to greyscale and then to various halftone screens. I first started doing this kind of transforming to halftone screen from almost the first time I used Photoshop some 17 years ago.
Click on the image for a more high resolution image to pop up.

and here is the video itself -
 

Alice in Wonderland: A Study in Translation

I saw a postcard of this Mad Hatter panel a few years ago and always suspected it was part of a larger program of panels. Indeed it is and the full Alice in Wonderland Window can be seen as part of the website for the church where it's located - All Saints Church in Daresbury, England.

  
SG photography by John Eastwood

Flickring Stained Glass Portraits

I've done my fair share of portraits in stained glass and I wonder sometimes how others treat the same idea in stained glass. So - call in my friend Flickr.

These are all gathered from one search on one evening on Flickr using the words 'stained glass portrait'. I was a little suprised that there were only 238 results but I guess the search was too specific. I presume more results would come from 'stained glass head' or 'stained glass face'. Most of the images were not so much of stained glass, but portraits of real people in proximity to stained glass. Still, the search, as always on Flickr, yielded some interesting and surprising results regarding actual stained glass.

mostly pictures...


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This is a stained glass panel from a cemetery in Montmartre, Paris. I'm not sure if the technique used was an actual photographic positive put into a stained glass window or a process using decals or some such method to make a more permanent adhesion to the glass. Most of the attempts to include actual photographic plates into stained glass failed because the photographic chemicals could not hold up over time in the constant transmitted light.


Another cemetery picture - also in Paris (city of beautiful cemeteries), at Pere LaChaise. I've been there. It is an amazing place, and not just because of Jim Morrison.


These are a few portrait details from Queen's College at Oxford.
Charles 2


Catherine of Braganza


Henry the 4th


Gresham Palace, Budapest, Hungary
and who was Kossuth Lajos?


All Saints, Upper Sheringham, Norfolk
Unusually for Flickr, this page has a great deal of information about the church, location and window. The portrait is of "the daughter of Henry and Caroline Upcher and the grand-daughter of Abbot Upcher. The family were great benefactors to the church."


The Flickr page showing these unusual windows, depicting 23 Victorian gentlemen displaying a dazzling diversity of facial hair styles, suggests that it's located in the National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh, Scotland; but there is no sign of it on the Portrait Gallery website.


This is at the Ishiya Chocolate Factory in Sapporo, Japan.
The panel "depicts some of the famous people connected with chocolate, such as Napoleon, Columbus and Goethe." Who knew?


Not something I ever expected to see in stained glass portraiture -
Fidel Castro - located at the John Hardman Studio, but could find no info...


This also was unexpected -
Portrait Bra by Mimi Lipson


Stained-glass portrait of Martin Luther - Hauptkirche St. Michaelis†
This one was also tagged 'creepy'.


Samuel Johnson - the caption being "In a piece of stained glass at the good doctor's house in Gough Square, just off Fleet Street, London"


A rather mystical portrait of Aaron, the brother of Moses. Not strictly a 'portrait', of course, but a striking image nonetheless -


The Moor's Head Inn, or something like that... from a pub, anyway.
I like the simplicity of this one. I do wonder if it's based on a real person.