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

Have just installed a new contemporary commission for a private residence at Wamboin in NSW (between Bungendore and Canberra). I installed the front door and sidelights late last year; this is the bathroom window. The images below show, from left to right, the full-size charcoal cartoon, the glass all cut and laid out over lights and the installed window. Extensive use has been made of Lambert's mouthblown glass, the same glass that was installed in the sidelights (laminated to comply with Australian building codes) and used in the front door stained glass panels.

The artwork describes my wonderful two hour walk through the 600acre property where the house is nestled, facing west, and also refers to the music of Australian composers
Peter Sculthorpe and John Antil. Having completed the work for the front
door a few weeks prior I needed to steep myself in a musical response to the Australian
landscape for inspiration in creating the imagery for this window.

Several new commissions feature in this blog: kitchen windows in Surry Hills, an entryway in a lovely old home at Milson's Point on Sydney's Lower North Shore and a private chapel at a country property near Cessnock.

Regular readers of this website might remember images of this project in Milson's Point underway on my ABOUT page, showing the original door as a solid timber door with a fanlight above. The commission called for the replacement of the 4x timber infill panels with glass, which entailed quite a bit of onsite work. The photos were taken just as I'd completed the installation but prior to the stripping and painting of the timberwork. I used a collection of found bevels from old leadlights and while there was a need to respect the original fanlight I was asked to provide something more upbeat and contemporary.

The two photos above show a pair of windows installed as highlights over the back entrance of a Surry Hills residence just three weeks ago. I had a lot of fun with this design; it is intended to pay respect to an existing traditional leadlight in the adjacent bathroom and also takes its cue from the black and white rectangular tiling in the kitchen. Here again I've used some 'found object': an interesting bevel out of an old leadlight and some cast jewels and rondels.

This window was a really enjoyable project to work on. Commissioned by Liz Mullinar, Director of Heal for Life the window sits above a door leading from the bedroom to a chapel and was intended as an inspirational piece for private devotion. The house is situated on a beautiful property in the Quarrabolong Valley near Cessnock, about 2 hours north of Sydney, with panoramic views of rolling hills, farmland and distant bushy ranges.

Last Sunday turned out to be the perfect sunny day for a viewing of my recent stained glass commission, the Breath of Compassion. Hung on the southern wall of the main stairwell, the brief for this work called for maximum reflection of sunlight so lots of iridised and silvered glasses were employed in the design.

Michael Ryan and Paul andrews were very generous in hosting the event and it was terrific to be able to share the work with a good number of friends: a very rare opportunity. Regular visitors to my website will recall seeing progress shots of the Breath of compassion on my ABOUT page last year. The work took a year to come together and was installed in November 2011. Claremont Joinery did a brilliant job of the framing; getting the work hung was quite a trick.