Interview with Kris Clough
Stained Glass Artist
The Center has a new sign. If you have not yet seen it in our front window, here is a picture of it. I interviewed the artist who created it, Kris Clough.
LGBT News: How did you get interested in stained glass? How long have you been working with stained glass and how did you learn to create stained glass works?
Kris: In undergrad, I took a couple of glass blowing classes and loved doing it. Glass can look one way when the source of light is coming from the front and another when it comes from the back. It's a property that I love about this medium. My neighbor from Madison took a stained glass course offered at one of the glass studios in town. I saw her project and asked if she could teach me. She said no problem, find a project that you want to do and then we can work on it. My father was a tech ed teacher and taught me how to do wood working. These skills have crossed over into my glass work. The first project I made was for my future Goddaughter, although I didn't know that she was going to be my Goddaughter at the time. I designed a Noah's ark stained glass. That was about 3 years ago. As far as how I learned how to design my pieces, that is an interesting question. There are some basic rules for strength of the piece and how you cut the glass, but these vary depending on how big it is, if you are framing it in a wood frame, if it is going to be inside or outside, or attached to a door and what method you are using to cut the glass. Other than my glass blowing classes, I never took art or design classes in high school or college, so where the rest of the designing comes from, I don't know. If you would ask me to pick out a wardrobe, I would tell you to ask my sister.
LGBT News: What other kind of projects have you worked on? Anything really big or really small or for another organization?
Kris: Most of the projects I do end up being gifts for friends and family. They range from a camping scene, doves with interlocking rings, delphiniums whose stems interlock into rings, dining room table scene, to lamp shades. Other projects get donated to charity groups. These have included a golden retriever and a 3-D pig, Many of the projects are about 14"X16". Some are around 6"x8". The biggest two are about 18"x27", which is the size of the resource center's stained glass. The complexity of a piece can vary greatly. For example the Center's stained glass is 33 pieces, whereas the other piece that is the same size, has 178 pieces, with half of a wine bottle, the stem of a wine glass, a glass plate, and 3-D orange slices. All of the projects that I make are custom designed for the person(s) or group that they are designed for. I occasionally use patterns over again.
LGBT NEWS: What prompted you to create a sign for the Center? How long did it take you to create it?
Kris:I was helping paint the Resource Center and started talking about the lamp shades that I was working on for my sister's wedding present. I brought one of them down and showed the group that was there. Daina, who is one of the Resource Center's board members, approached me and asked me if I would want to make one for the Center. I used the Center's logo as the starting point and then added in the triangle and circle with the male, female, and trans symbols. The wording and star are actually sandblasted and painted, rather than individual pieces of glass. The time it takes from start to finish is hard to determine as most of the design stage occurs when I'm trying to fall asleep and then I have to put it on paper. I'll sometimes let a design sit for a week before I decide to make changes. Without design time, the stained glass probably took about 20 hours. I also made the wood frame that it is in.
LGBT News: Anything else you want to tell the newsletter reader about yourself?
Kris: Currently, stained glass is one of the hobbies that I have. I have had several people ask me about selling them. I'm not sure that if I started selling them, if I would enjoy it as much. My other hobbies include woodworking, softball, biking, hockey, hiking, and sewing.