We’ve just shipped out three new designs for craftsman style entries. The Magnolia design went to Renton Washington and was inspired by a tree that was nearly taken out by an ice storm January, 2012. My client wrote ‘Within three minutes a tree fell on my wife’s car and the Magnolia broke in half, the magnolia was the only thing we cared about, the car you can fix.’

This Hawthrone front door and two sidelights set went to Provo, Utah. It’s made with a clear seedy glass that allows the maximum amount of light to pass while providing privacy.

This Plum Blossom Window now lives in an interior door in a home in San Francisco.

The team of Steve Rynerson and Paul Duchscherer has won a Palladio Award for the restoration of the McDonald Mansion in Santa Rosa, CA.

Mableton’s Map Room is a newly-created mezzanine-level room accessed via the Library’s spiral stair and catwalk. As the name implies, the room houses the owners’ collection of antique maps, and the cartographic theme is reinforced by a stained glass compass rose window designed and fabricated by Theodore Ellison Designs. The neo-grec wallpaper scheme of the Library expands into the three-part ceiling and panelized walls of the Map Room which doubles as a private study.

At the stair landing is a matching suite of Japanesque leaded art glass windows custom designed for this project.

I was contacted last year with a dream project; to create some Maher-esque glass and mosaic designs for a home inspired by his Prairie School work. Maher, one of my favorite architects, used leaded glass and mosaic in many of his commissions throughout his career. I used the mosaic from the Schultz House in Kenilworth, Illinois as a starting point and the massive oak in the client’s front yard provided the subject matter I used to develop these designs.

George Washington Maher, Fireplace Mosaic, Schultz House, Winnetka, Illinois, 1907.
Fabricated by Orlando Giannini.

This window shows Maher’s unique use of a plant motif. It’s stylized just enough to conform with the design and function of the window. Maher often chose a stylized plant that he integrated throughout the decorative designs of a house. And the arch top is another design signature he employed during his Prairie period.

George Washington Maher, Leaded Glass window, Blinn House, Pasadena, California, 1906.
Fabricated by Orlando Giannini.

We made these Oak and Acorn kitchen cabinetry panels from a combination of opalescent and iridescent glass.

This mosaic panel was created for an inset in the brick fireplace.

We worked closely with woodworker Bernie Jungle to create this custom dining room light.

For hundreds of years, craftsman have been using glass to celebrate getting drunk and the tradition continues to the present day – mostly in the form of faux-glass beer signs and pool table lamps.

Working together with the proprietors of the Hotsy Totsy Club, I created a front door window intended to look original to the building. Using salvaged glass, I created a font inspired by vintage hand-painted signage. Having visited the bar in preparation for this commission, I realized this window would require additional bracing to withstand the near constant barrage of thrown glassware and nightly brawls, so I devised a system of reinforcement that should keep this panel in good shape for years to come.

Last November we had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to view a broad array of top tier work from Tiffany Studios and others just a few miles from the workshop. Takeo Horiuchi, a collector from Japan had assembled this collection over two decades and built a museum to house it. Concerned about the danger posed to the work by earthquakes in Japan, Horiuchi decided to disperse the collection and worked with a local auction house, Michaan’s, in nearby Alameda. One wonders if he was aware that he sent his collection to a patch of landfill created by the Navy, midway between two major earthquake faults, but we were glad that he did!

While it was on view, my crew and I took multiple trips to view and discuss the work. We also benefitted from Michaan’s liberal photography policy. Here are some detail shots of the pieces that caught my eye.

One of my favorite things is trading work with artists and craftspeople whose work I admire. Audel Davis, a metal smith from Berkeley, handcrafts original designs inspired by classic forms of the past and his work is

The two aspects of Audel Davis’s work I most admire are his high standards of craftsmanship and his ability to allow his designs, informed as they are by elements from the past, t

He had a pair of copper candle sticks at the Grove Park Inn 5 years ago that had a Liberty

o speak their own, unique vocabulary.

The guild I’m in, Artistic License, turns 30 this year and to celebrate we’re hosting a benefit gala for San Francisco’s oldest theater, the Bayview Opera House, a non-profit community cultural center on the National Rgister of Historic Places. Several members have donated handmade ornaments for sale at tomorrrow night’s event at the War Memorial Veterans Building in San Francisco.

I designed these Prairie School inspired pieces using glass from Germany, Oregon, Pennsylvania and tiny pieces of blue and green iridescent glass made by Evan Chambers.

Tickets are available here.

I’m often asked what the difference is between a skylight and a laylight. A skylight is the opening in the roof that allows light to pass; more specifically it’s the panel that keeps the elements out. A laylight is a glazed panel set flush with the ceiling for admitting natural or artificial lighting. Our laylights are designed to enhance the functionality of a skylight by modulating light flow, obscuring the light well and adding a decorative element that’s suited to the room below.

This design allows maximum light transmission into the kitchen. The background glass evenly diffuses the lightwhile diminishing the view of the sheet rocked light well and the colors of the fallen leaves tie in with the warm tones of the cabinetry and hardwood floor. It’s installed into a hinged frame that opens and locks in place to service the artificial lights above.

We just shipped out this landscape window to it’s new home on Lake Charlevoix in Northern Michigan. We used multiple layers of glass plated on top of one another to modulate the color and density of the design. To see the full window and learn how I created it, go here and click on the Design Development image on the right side of the page.