Dunn Bros. Coffee Lake St. and Bryant Ave., Uptown

I’ve had 6 of my largest windows hanging at this coffeeshop since the beginning of September. In a couple of weeks I will hang 13 skeleton windows for Halloween and Day of the Dead through November. Gotta finish Pink Twist soon. photos: Bodil Diseth

Pink Twist progress

Pink Twist

The body is pretty much done, next is her pink beehive hair-do and ice cream on her cone.

Old painted window

I spent almost 3 hours completely dismantling this 18 x 40 inch window from the both the outside of a friend’s house and part of the buffet inside. To our surprise it had a sheet of rootbeer colored glass behind it obscuring the brighter painted panel. Was it too bright for the homeowner without it? I don’t know what the new design will be but these pieces are now part of my painted scrap glass inventory.

Pink Twist

The body pieces are matted and fired, ready to cut to size. I painted a bunch of additional stuff to possibly use for something later since I had the room on the pieces (really, I was just playing with a brush). Looking forward to the fun part of assembling the window now.

Fischer glass

For almost every Wednesday over the last 4 years, I have spent the evening with good friends Ted Bair and John Salisbury (owner of Gaytee Stained Glass Studios) eating pizza and talking and seeing all things stained glass in John’s studio. For the last 2 years as John finally put the Studio up for sale, I had been living with the prospect that our Wednesday evenings would eventually come to an end. That moment is here as John has sold the studio and 40 years of material and memories. John has been instrumental in my development as a stained glass artist and his knowledge and generosity has fueled a passion I had not experienced with any other media I had worked with in the past. I owe him so much and dedicate my work to him going forward. This is yet another sheet of Fischer glass I was sent home with last night, the last piece of glass I was humbled to receive before John closed his shop for good. I’m on my own again with my stained glass "hobby" and it is the friendship that I have forged with him that inspires me to continue to build the best windows possible. I can never thank you enough John.