‘Stained glass, in the arts, the coloured glass used for making decorative windows and other objects through which light passes. Strictly speaking, all coloured glass is “stained,” or coloured by the addition of various metallic oxides while it is in a molten state. Nevertheless, the term stained glass has come to refer primarily to the glass employed in making ornamental or pictorial windows. The singular colour harmonies of the stained-glass window are less due to any special glass-colouring technique itself than to the exploitation of certain properties of transmitted light and the light-adaptive behaviour of human vision. Rarely equalled and never surpassed, the great stained-glass windows of the 12th and early 13th centuries actually predate significant technical advances in the glassmaker’s craft by more than half a century. And much as these advances undoubtedly contributed to the delicacy and refinement of the stained glass of the later Middle Ages, not only were they unable to arrest the decline of the art, but they may rather have hastened it to the extent that they tempted the stained-glass artist to vie with the fresco and easel painter in the naturalistic rendition of their subjects.
‘Of all the painter’s arts, stained glass is probably the most intractable. It is bound not only by the many light-modulating factors that affect its appearance but also by comparatively cumbersome, purely structural demands. And yet no other art seems so little earthbound, so alive, so intrinsically beguiling in its effect. This is because stained glass, far more directly and intensively than other media, exploits the interaction between two highly dynamic phenomena, the one physical and the other organic. The physical factor is light and all of the myriad changes in the general light level and the location and intensity of particular light sources that occur as a matter of course not only from moment to moment but from place to place—a prairie to a forest, a greenhouse to a dungeon. The other phenomenon is the spontaneous light-adaptive process of vision, which seeks to maintain orientation in all luminous environments.’ — collaged
Stained Glass for Beginners
___
Show
Menfolk, 2007
KATHEDRALE I, 2007
steel, x-ray photographs, lead, glass. 244 x 104 cm
Muslhaufen, 2012
Watertower 5: Greenpoint, 2016
Kolonihavehus, 2010
Untitled, 2014
The Stained Glass Driverless Sleeper Car, 2014
Residential project in Amsterdam by housing corporation Ymere
St.-Foy Abbey-church
Stained Glass Golden Zelda Dice Tower
Sigmar Polke stained glass windows for the Grossmünster church
Cannibal Holocaust
Nancy’s Bathtub Scene from Nightmare on Elm St.
Chucky
Cannibal Holocaust Version 2
Lamina, 2005
Notre-Dame of Paris Cathedral Reconstruction Proposal
Metropolitan Cathedral of Mexico City
These People Are Intellectuals…, 2020
Self Portrait I, 2020
There is a Grain of Sand in Lambeth that Satan cannot find, 2020
Head, 2020
*
p.s. Hey. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi. Wow, I weirdly get what you’re getting at, but, wow, I hope not, ha ha. ** Misanthrope, Hi. Really? My eyes didn’t register the random stray baby. Now I have to go find it, of course. Well, not ‘now’. I think your little dude was just trying to say something from Psychology 101 that he thought would get him off the hook. He needs to be rewired, but … how? I’m semi-living for, first, the reopening of sorts on the 19th and, second, the final (for now) shot on, mm, June 12th, I think. The rest is doodling. ** Sypha, Hi. I originally was going to restore the ‘Dragon Age’ one, but all the videos in it are now dead, so ‘The Sims’ got the berth. It was a goodie, and it seems to have bemused folks far and wide. ** Dominik, Hi!!! I’ve never played ‘The Sims’. I don’t know why since I was big gamer back then. It just flew by. Hm, no, I don’t think I’ve ever thought we were all sim-like things in some game, have I? I don’t think so. That’s weird. I wonder why. Maybe I’ll try it. Yeah, when I go out today I’m going to fantasise around that premise and see what happens. Have you? SCAB saves the day! Again! Everyone, Dominick’s masterstroke of a lit/art zine SCAB offers you a bump of coke (in the good way) by issuing its newest entree coincidentally entitled ‘Inhaling Party Balloons Alone’, and you can one-up who you are right now by clicking this. Wow, your love made my head become a private amusement park. Thank you! Love putting on magic shoes that makes every sidewalk he walks upon suddenly turn into a canal exactly 10 minutes after he last set foot there, G. ** Steve Erickson, Ah ha! Everyone, to add to your offsite pleasure importation, here’s Steve with two more green word-shaped portals. Steve: ‘I reviewed Ulrike Ottinger’s PARIS CALLIGRAMMES, and I wrote a new song, “Phantom in a Lab Coat”, which mixes samples taken from opera and classical music with electronic instrumentation.’ Happy to hear that Factrix caused your verbiage to weigh in. ** All right. The artist/music maker and d.l. Bill (Hsu) suggested the other day that I make a post about stained glass. I thought that was an interesting challenge, and I accepted, and today I present what I managed to come up with. See you tomorrow.
Now available in North America 
*
Hi!!
I haven’t played “The Sims” either. In fact, I’ve never been a gamer, and it’s supremely weird and inexplicable, considering how video games seem to offer everything I’m generally into. I do, however, often imagine that I’m somebody’s “character” and they write my life the same way I write that of my own characters.
Thank you so much for the SCAB shoutout again!!
Okay, I’ll either have to make sure not to follow your love or follow him as closely as I can, like a shadow, haha. Thank you! Love gifting you a Wim Delvoye stained glass piece of your choice, Od.
The Kehinda Wiley is especially great.
Dennis, I like this day. I’ve never really thought of stained glass outside the context of churches or wind chimes. And never with some of these subjects. Usually, just saints and angels and Jesus, and flowers for the wind chimes (or bugs).
Yeah, I thought the same exact thing last night and this morning: excuses.
So…after I helped him get a new phone a couple months ago when he totally destroyed his last phone…he gets a bill yesterday from T mobile for…$759. Hasn’t been paying his bill at all. The $95 he got out of me last month because he’d spent all his money for 420 (same day his bill is due, btw) and needed to pay his phone bill…all a scam. Just bought drugs and never paid the bill.
Of course, he keeps on that it’s T mobile’s fault, that he did pay the bill, blah blah blah. I remember my parents saying, “How stupid do you think we are?” Well, I’m at that point now.
What’s really funny is that they actually sent him another phone by mistake. He’s using that now with wifi while at the house. He could use it to work. Just have his friend who always goes with him use his phone as a hotspot. Suddenly, the friend doesn’t want to go with him. (And really, never should be going with him at all.)
Ugh.
And we’re pretty sure he’s not been paying his car insurance, so he’s driving around without insurance. All the money he does make just goes to drugs.
Funny, too, how he doesn’t seem THAT upset about this lost phone. Very likely he didn’t pay his bill, knew he’d get cut off, and just sold the phone for drugs.
Anyway, this is all stress I don’t need or want. The constant lies are the worst. We did this for 20+ years with my brother. I’m over it.
When I see these images of Stained Glass artwork I immediatly think of Gilbert and George. Have they ever done a stained glass work? Their photo-collage big pieces remind me of that aesthetic. And I want to say thank you for the recommendation of “Doomed and Famous” by Adrian Dannatt. The book came in the mail yesterday, and really enjoying it.
Stunning stained glass gallery today, Dennis! I love the Debora Coombs, Wim Delvoye (his website shows a really diverse range of work), Kehinde Wiley, and (of course) Judith Schaechter. And that Hellraiser piece is mighty fine too.
I never saw Factrix live, unfortunately. I don’t think they were playing out much by the time I got to SF. I also never heard about the reunion gig they did at the Chapel, argh.
Good to see the new SCAB, Dominik!
Bill
Re-Cooper-ated: Bravo! Something about black leaded frames around each piece of glass makes them feel like early Kandinskys. I like Pink Donut and Chucky. Looking forward to catching up. Things are massively slammy. The Hammer Museum yesterday did the first of what will now be 6 Hammer videos surrounding Sabrina Tarasoff’s untamable “Beyond Baroque” Made in L.A. 2020 biennial installation. You and Little Caesar were well-represented in curator Lauren Mackler’s spiel. Natch !! All these vidz– including those hosted by pal Tosh Berman – will be housed on the Hammer site. Life’s an illusion, love is a dream. xo