Leaving... on a jet plane.....

The Dondero Windows are finished, and heading to their new home.

Last week I completed and delivered the third Dondero Window. In two days all three panels will be (carefully) packed up and shipped to the Dondero home in New Mexico, where they'll be hung in a large and sunny entrance hall.  For those who missed the first postings, here are the first two panels with their owner. 

Suzanne and Russ had me make these windows in honor of their three children - Yasmin, Aaron, and Ariela.  Each panel celebrates one child.  The three panels, when hung correctly, form a flowing depiction of the history, geography, and agriculture of Israel. 
Here's me making Aaron's window (the last of the three):




In the first photo, you can see that I've started to cut the glass.  I only enlarged one copy of the pattern, so I had to be very organized.  As I cut each piece, I put it exactly in its place in the panel design.  I only cut out a few pieces from the pattern each time so as not to get them mixed up.






In the next two photos, I've started to foil the pieces.  Naturally, this is only after each piece was ground, washed and dried.  As I was doing this step, I had the missing piece with Aaron's name in my fusing kiln.

The last photos show the panel completed.  You can see that I've not only soldered everything, but I've also added strong lead borders, top hanging wires, and little curling grape vines from wire. 

This was a wonderful, fun project to do.  I always love the challenge of creating something for someone else - it requires that I work with their imagination as well as my own, and often the results are quite surprising.  My new custom project - a huge project! - is a set of 4 windows with a peacock standing in a jungle for a client in Arad.  I"m still enlarging the pattern, so the bulk of the work still awaits me :-)