AMILTON D E S I G N G L A S S The artwork of Jeffrey Hamilton

Back on deck: more progress shots

XX Mon. YYYY

So its back in the saddle with lots of glass painting underway. Above is the central motif for the Balmain entryway, just finished after 6x firings, and below the first trace for the scrollwork in the arched portion of the Dorcas window to be installed into Nowra Presbyterian Church

The fanlight for the Balmain residence has just been built (above). Pictured below are close-ups of the two bird paintings. While the general approach of the design has been quite traditional, I've aimed to keep the painting fresh and forward-looking rather than imitating what can be seen as drab traditional work. Part of this decision-making was not giving the birds a matted background.

The past fortnight hasn't been completely all work and no play -its still January after all, but I'm afraid I won't be heading off to Canberra this week for the Ausglass Conference, nor dancing my feet off at Electric Gardens for the Australia Day celebrations on Saturday (as much as I would LOVE to).

There's still a lot of painting to go for the Dorcas window for Nowra Presbyterian and the donors have been extremely patient with me already... can't keep them waiting!

But I did get along to a couple of Sydney Festival events: SPECTRA at the Seymour Centre was spectacular, truly inspiring and captivating with a set by Tatsu Miyajima, Mongolian throat singing, and superb coreography. Fortunately I had spent a whole day at the AGNSW and then MCA in the week between Xmas/New year so I'd seen the Miyajima exhibition and was thrilled to see his work used in a live performance situation. Made it so much more meaningful for me. [More on Miyajima in my next blog]

And the other fascinating performance I caught as part of Sydney Festival was Long String Instrument at Sydney Town Hall. Contrasting completely with the hectic, even tortured though engaging cello work preceeding the main act, Ellen Fullman's performance was totally mesmerising and meditative

New Installations

XX Mon. YYYY

Over the past 6 months my major commission has been two double window sets for St Peter's Anglican Church in East Maitland. With the assistance of Ron Jensen of Heritage Stained Glass, New Lambton, his off-sider Anthony and my assistant Hannah, we got these four windows and their quatrafoils installed over four days last week.

Two weeks prior to this installation, I completed the installation of a pair of stained glass door panels to a family vault in Frenchs Forrest Cemetery.

The brief for this project called for renderings of the Coat of Arms of the City of Lombardo, Italy and St Aloysius School in North Sydney. I took as my lead the bold deco design of the facade, echoing the bronze, brass and black granite.

A New Window for Merewether Anglican

XX Mon. YYYY

I'm still a bit exhausted but that's probably as much to do with the cold I have as with the installation at Merewether, which I didn't finish until about 8.30pm Thursday 11th. Merewerther is a beachside suburb of Newcastle, about 2hrs drive north of Sydney. So even getting up at 6am to be at the studio by 7 and on the road by about 8.15 still meant I was cementing the rebate in the dark- and that was without much of a lunch break.

I was very grateful to Chris Welwood for his assistance on the job; chopping glass out of cement render is nobody's idea of fun and this one was as hard as they come. Whoever installed the spotswood when the Prayer Room extension was added to St Augustine's Church did not understand the concept of making a soft, sandy mortar that is easily excavated in later years.

Chris used to run his own business, Aurora Stained Glass in Narellan, near Campbelltown, for quite some years. He produced a lot of fine work together with his partner Julie but found eventually that the business was unsustainable. It was great to have someone on hand who knew how to handle leadlights, even though he had not done a masonry installation before.

I was very grateful to David of Our Town Glass and Glazing in nearby Dudley for his consultation on fitting the overglazing. He was able to point out a few deficiencies in my planned approach. When I get back onsite during the coming week we'll be able to provide effective and discreet protective glazing for the windows.

UPDATE 2013:
three of the five windows are now installed into the Prayer Space at St Augustine's; Our Town Glass & Glazing has closed, and David has retired.