Here’s a detail from a window we made for a home in Georgia. The glass in the tree, background and flowers was made in Oregon, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Indiana. The bird is made out of blown glass remnants made by Evan Chambers in Pasadena, California.

I met Evan 7 years ago at the Pasadena Craftsman Weekend and made a trip to visit him in his workshop the following year. His place was in the middle of nowhere back then and he seemed to spent all his time experimenting and making his highly original work. He showed me how he made his intricately feathered and iridized glass the way he was taught by the late Sonny Cresswell, a process that I never understood.

When I was leaving he gave me a gift I didn’t know what to do with; a box of broken glass vessels. A few years later I designed a window inspired by Japanese woodblock prints and came across Evan’s scraps when I was looking for glass for the bird. I realized if I reheated them in the kiln, they’d slump flat and I could use them in a window.

A few years later I went back with my son, and Evan took the time to give him a glass blowing lesson!

Here’s what he made: