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Fiammata's NEW STAINED GLASS DESIGN

  • Vortexiiglass

Stained Glass in SAN FRANCISCO, CA

  • St. Patrick's Catholic Church, S.F.

Stained Glass in OAKLAND, CA

  • rose, St. Leo's,

Stained Glass in ST. MARY'S CATHEDRAL, S.F. CA

  • dalle de verre curtain

Stained Glass in GRACE CATHEDRAL, San Francisco CA

  • Connick glass

Stained Glass in COLMA, CA: City of Cemeteries

  • window by Cummings

THE COLUMBARIUM, San Francisco, CA

  • Outside of the Columbarium

Stained Glass in Saint Luke's, SAN FRANCISCO, CA

  • St. Luke's Episcopal Church
    The glass in this lovely white church on Van Ness deserved its own photoAlbum. The majority of windows are the reknown English firm of Heaton, Butler & Bayne, London, UK. They boast beautiful clerestory windows of angels with outstretched wings and exquisitely detailed painting. The aisle windows boast enamelwork, silverstain, acid etching, and delicate painting sometimes on both sides of the glass, adding a real depth to the glass when viewed up close. There are also some adequate windows by the firm of Wipple Co. of london, but they are not nearly as excellent. Much of the aisle windows are located at eye-level, and are real treats to be studied. The painterly compositions are quite complex with real sensitivity to balance and color range. website: http://www.stlukessf.org/main.htm

Stained Glass in St. Brigid's Church, S.F., CA

  • Exterior

The Swedenborgian Church, San Francisco, CA

  • Bible, on the alter
    The Church opened its doors for worship March 17, 1895, and was designed by a distinguished group of architects including the celebrated Bernard Maybeck. Its founding pastor, Rev. Joseph Worcester, was longtime friend of John Muir. Rev. Worcester purchased the land on which the Church and its grounds are located. A Statement of Significance reads: "The Swedenborgian Church ecclesiastical complex is an ensemble of buildings that is exceptionally valuable to our understanding of the development of a style of architecture we now call the First Bay Tradition, the harbinger of the Arts and Crafts Movement in the western United States. Natural materials, domestic scale and appearance, traditional and earthy structural forms, and site-specific designs define the First Bay Tradition. The visionary Swedenborgian minister Joseph Worcester brought together leading architects of the First Bay Tradition, A. Page Brown, A.C. Schweinfurth, and Bernard Maybeck, as well as the contemporary painter William Keith, stained-glass artist Bruce Porter, artist Mary Curtis Richardson and other designers and craftsmen to create an integrated complex of buildings. ... Like the closely-allied Arts and Crafts Movement, the First Bay Tradition developed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and stressed a comprehensive design approach: from architecture to interior furnishings, from fixtures to artwork. The church is one of the earliest, most influential and best surviving examples of this important national and regional building tradition." The following is an excerpt of the National Landmarking Committee's commentary supporting its decision to grant Landmark status: The Swedenborgian Church of San Francisco is "…a critically important example of the American contribution to the Arts and Crafts Movement as exemplified in new architectural imagery, integration with the site, garden design, and use of natural materials. The interior shows the employment of the decorative arts to create a special atmosphere, and also the first examples of the 'mission chairs.' ... The Church is important as an example of the Swedenborgian contribution to American religious, social theory and intellectual life."

Stained Glass in the Ahwahnee Lodge, Yosemite CA

  • stained Glass in the main lodge hall

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November 06, 2007

Visit to the Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University

Just before my trip to Yosemite, I had an opportunity to (finally!) browse the collections at the Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University. A beautiful Richardsonian Romanesque building with intricate glass mosaics on the exterior frieze, lovely Classical architecture inside, as well as first rate collections. The museum opened to the public in 1894 as one of the largest museums in the United States, and is free to the public. In 1989, the Loma Prieta earthquake damaged the Stanford Art Museum and it was closed. Following further donations by broker B. Gerald Cantor (co-founder Cantor Fitzgerald) and his wife Iris, the center reopened in 1999 as the Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University. It is also known as Cantor Arts Center.

While there, we got to see An exhibit of the photographs of Yosemite Valley by Ansel Adams, Edward Muybridge, and Carleton E. Watkins, three generations of early photographers to the valley. Because this was a special exhibit of light sensitive works, I could not snap any pics to include here. but it provided a wonderful prelude to my own trip the next week, where I have made many outstanding photographs myself, and was similarly inspired by the rich natural forms of the Valley.

The Cantor Arts Center is home to one of the foremost collections of the works of the revered French sculptor August Rodin. One of the highlights of Cantor Arts Center is the Rodin sculpture garden which contains 20 bronzes. Among them are the famous massive Gates of Hell, and also Adam, Eve, The Three Shades, and The Thinker. The Burghers of Calais is displayed in the Stanford Main Quad. In total, the Cantors donated 187 of Rodin's works, making Stanford University the third largest Rodin collection in the world after the Musée Rodin in Paris (which I've been to and can tell you is amazing!) and the Rodin Museum in Philadelphia, PA.

Here are a few of my favorite pieces...

(With their orange background, these sort of remind me of a Bay Area Figurative Expressionist painting from the fifties...

ADAM

ADAM- second view

and of course, the amazing Thinker, located in the domed rotunda...

There are many other treasure here that I loved, such as this old Japanese dragon, made completely out of ivory...

And there is a noteworthy outdoor sculpture by Scottish artist Andy Goldsworthy, a serpentine like pyramidal form made of rocks from a Stanford campus building destroyed in the 1906 earthquake.

I recommend a visit, as the architecture of the campus is beautiful, and there is plenty to see after the museum closes. The campus has several large Northwest Coast Native American totem poles, the Rodin sculpture garden outside, and a beautiful church.

November 06, 2007 |