A funny thing happened while writing this story.
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I set out to relate a short tale about a toy I had when I was a small child. I wasn’t going to write more than a few paragraphs. However, as I began to reminisce about that moment in my life, this simple undertaking took off in a direction I had not anticipated. Perhaps you highly accomplished writers already know this, but I, a total novice, just discovered how the mere act of putting one’s past into words can be a cathartic experience. Those bittersweet yesterdays came back to pull me along in a murky undertow and toss me into a sea of unresolved childhood dilemmas, only to buoy me up again into the bosom of a warm embrace of pure ecstasy. The journey took me through a bewildering set of choices chock full of emotions and down overgrown paths, some thorny, some flowery, but all going in crazy directions.
Who knew this would happen?
¯\_ˁ(•́ ‸ •̀ )ˀ_/¯
I know this now. The odyssey I share with you.
My Kaleidoscopic World
I realize this may sound a bit unconventional, perhaps even a sign of my immaturity, but working with glass always makes me feel like a kid with a new toy. I say this because there is more to glass than just its color and texture. For instance, translucent artesian glass is particularly intriguing, for when I peer deep into its tantalizing properties, I can enter a world all my own. I am especially moved by stained glass. Show me cobalt blue and I immediately smile and imagine myself swimming through it. For reasons I will explain later, that particular color evokes childhood memories of a world full of mystery and endless new discovery. I become transfixed with its color and the way it plays upon the light.
This all started so very long ago, probably when I was about age five, for that was the first time I gazed into a kaleidoscope. The captivating patterns of dancing color swiftly held me in a mesmerized state. Even at my advanced age, looking through one today can whisk me away to that joyous world of yesteryear when I watched for the first time those dazzling lights as they playfully sparkled just for me.
As that small child, those beautiful glimmers of light told a story of otherworldly magic and of a strange, ever-undulating kinetic universe of color and geometric patterns. The most baffling part was that it all seemed so close that I imagined if I could fit inside I would be welcomed into this beautiful world, but when I tumbled the kaleidoscope anew, in an instant everything seemed so far away, farther than any distance I had ever known. It was like a strange new power in my tiny hands and I knew that I would never lose my interest in gazing through this new place within a place, it was like a time machine!
Soon enough the carefree days turned into years away from my limitless world within a world, replaced by one of walls within walls and strict rules. My beautiful garden of light had to be set aside for this thing called school, a place run by those who were supposed to teach me things. I was a terrible student as my mind was always detached and living in my own world, a place I found preferable to the one I was supposed to be paying attention to, after which the lights began to dim.
The Prismer
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The bright spot came when someone gave me a strange little thing with a funny name called a prism. What a silly word, I thought, yet it seemed to possess mystical powers the way it cast rainbows when viewed one way, then utterly distort the world when viewed another. Trying to understand its properties had me confounded! Nobody in my working-class family could explain to me how it worked, it was just a piece of glass after all, so I should stop being weird and do my homework.
Sure, it wasn't much of a toy like my kaleidoscope with moving pieces and all, but it looked cool and fit in my palm or pocket, so off to school it went to show my friends! They yawned. Well, what do they know. I put it away with the other special things I loved and took it out when I felt like daydreaming. It was in third-grade when I began to realize that I didn’t think like the rest of the kids and was called all sorts of unkind things beccause of my idiosyncracies. This mattered not, I loved light, music, and art in ways I could not explain.
At about this time, another illuminating thing happened - I was sent to a Catholic school with a church. It was an institutional and antiseptic brick box erected in the late 1950's with minimalist architecture that hid its post-modern influence like a beach ball under a hat, but at least it was festooned with stained glass windows!
The Colors Spoke To Me
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As far as stained-glass windows go, they were not the most imaginative, but the colors were something to behold! The scenes they depicted consisted of mostly primary colors from vivid yellows, to lush greens and fiery reds, but most of all they made copious use of a deep inky blue. The glass was thick and looked as if it had been cut in simple shapes that let the colors do the talking. As it was a typical Catholic church, I would have to sit, stand, kneel, sit, stand, kneel, lather, rinse, repeat - like a robot with a broken on and off switch. Fortunately, due to my mother's shyness, and perhaps because I wasn't particularly fond of being there, we always sat in the second-floor mezzanine, all the way in the back where it was dark and nobody noticed as I gazed into those oddly colored windows instead of the services.
It did not take long before my imaginative mind would soon be lost in thought and the desire to escape. I found myself focusing on one particularly large piece of glass made from that deep, rich, dusky blue. I thought that if heaven was nearby, it had to be inside that piece of glass, which was my favorite thing in the entire church. The color was so calming, so dreamy, so peaceful that it could transport me away from their maddening rituals and the nonsensical world of Latin mumbo-jumbo. I wanted to take that lovely piece of serene glass home, but alas that was not to be. To this day that uniquely beautiful specimen remains embedded where I suppose it belongs, in that church window.
Please Don’t Smite Me Lord!
(◣_◢) ☄. *. ⋆
As an aside, I know this may sound absurd to some, but I sincerely hope that if there is a young child who encounters that same singularly off-putting experience and is bored out of his ever-loving gourd… I wish that little one an epic escape into a fantasy-wild of brilliant colors and happy travels along with many kaleidoscopic dreams that this little boy did nearly sixty years ago.
So then life happens for a few decades, I marry my exquisitely delightful Kathie and I set up shop in St. Helens. All is going along rather normally, I’m doing remodeling and carpentry when, as it usually does, another event happened that shaped my life.
First, you have to understand that I was born in middle Ohio, a place where fanciful gingerbread houses with their resplendent architecture and stained-glass windows still grace the landscape of the many largely undisturbed towns across the state. I've always held a deep appreciation for fine architecture, but I have a special affinity for all of the stained glass used in many of these old homes, both small and large.
As I tried my hand at being a reasonable facsimile of an adult, my vocation of choice has been remodeling and building homes. Through the years, every opportunity I had to restore those sweet old windows, I did, as well as use every opportunity to convince the homeowner to restore the home to original condition rather than into something contemporary. If I was building a new project, I would incorporate as many windows in the design as possible to allow in natural light for passive solar heat and open vistas, not merely for aesthetic effect.
It Was Meant To Be
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One day our neighbor, an avid gardener, asked if I would be able to construct a greenhouse using some old wood-frame windows she had collected. Well, the instant those words struck my ears I enthusiastically agreed! The project was not without its challenges though as it had to be shoehorned in between a deck, a fence and a flight of stairs. Well, it turned out beyond cute, it was adorable! She loved it, I loved it, and everyone who saw it loved it (see below for links and pictures).
From that moment on I had this obsession to build another one. I knew it should have some color, but I didn't know anyone with stained glass, so after I had built a second small greenhouse, I decided to set it up at the St. Helens Home & Garden Show. As if some great cosmic force aligned, situated directly 180 degrees across the hall from me was a local glass artist named Kory Dollar. She had been using old wood-frame windows to affix stained glass in kaleidoscopic patterns, she called them “mosaics.”
They were incredible, it was the same thing that so captured my imagination as a child and it soon became obvious that the path for both of us lies in combining her stained glass mosaics with my use of windows for structural components!
This would alter the course of our lives as we immediately found projects to combine our efforts. Ever since then, I have put stained glass and mosaics in all of my greenhouses, art studios, and solaria and even began making new wood-framed substrates for her to use in art projects and classes. I build an average of one glass enclosure per year using stained glass and mosaics to provide the color, thus turning an already beautiful and functional solar home into a work of breathtaking art.
Going In Circles
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Obviously, this convoluted story is only a fraction of my days spent on this planet, but as this long saga draws to a close, it shows how the many paths my life has taken and how I keep returning to what I love most. I’ve gone full circle, and if that isn’t wild enough, the latest greenhouse was actually called Kaleidoscope House, one that was commissioned by a gardener in Vancouver, Washington.
In that one, as with nearly all of them, everything was made of reclaimed materials, from old garage door panels, to rough-cut cedar, old windows and doors, and even hardware upcycled from old homes. Every house is built like a jigsaw puzzle with each piece interlocking with the other making it very sturdy. I build it, dismantle it, transport it, and reassemble it on site thus taking architecture to a whole new level.
I think most people who love glass already see the magic it holds and probably have a special place in their heart when contemplating the vivid colors as they make new creations.
The Path
ε=ε=ε=ε=(ノ´‿｀)ノ
Even though I have retired from construction, my life in stained glass, wood, art, music, and architecture continues apace and keeping me young at heart. I think all artists, deep inside, have tapped into that child-like wonderment and innocence, for art is timeless and allows us to live in the world we want to live, no matter what the rest of the world does. If it comes down to staring at a blue screen in a cubicle or taking a gaze out the window at a blue sky, I recommend the latter.
I wish you a life filled with love, grace, and imagination.
♡｡ﾟ.(*♡´‿` 人´‿` ♡*)ﾟ♡ °・
Dave
A Branches & Blossoms Greenhouse
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Thank you for reading.