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Every morning in Alaska feels a little like a private show. The sky opens slowly, the snow on the mountains catches the first light, and the world goes from quiet blue to gold in a matter of minutes. That short window is where my newest piece, the was born. I want to tell you a little about how it came together, because honestly, no two pieces ever feel the same to make.

The Inspiration

I am a morning person by habit, partly because is so unusual and partly because the studio is quietest then. One winter morning I was watching the horizon shift from deep purple to peach over the mountains, and I sketched the colour bands right there at the kitchen table. The sketch was rough, almost just stripes, but the order of the colours felt important: violet at the bottom, into rose, into amber, into a soft sunlit white.

I have lived in Alaska long enough to know that you cannot copy a sunrise exactly. The light does not stay still. What you can do is capture the feeling of it, and is one of the few materials honest enough to do that. Real glass changes with the light, just like the sky does.

Choosing the Glass

I work almost exclusively with For the Sunrise Panel I wanted a mix of textures so the panel would look interesting both with the lights on indoors and lit from behind by daylight. I chose a granite-textured violet for the lower band, a streaky rose-pink, a deep iridescent amber, and a soft opaque white for the central light source. Each colour was cut from a different sheet, so the panel reads as a layered landscape rather than a flat picture.

Cutting the curves was the slow part. The lines in a sunrise are gentle, never sharp, and does not naturally love soft curves. I scored each piece, broke it carefully, and then ground the edges with a small water-cooled grinder until they sat together with almost no visible gaps. That step alone took the better part of two afternoons.

Building the Panel

Once the pieces fit, I wrapped each edge in This is the part of the process most people picture when they imagine stained glass, and it is also one of my favourite stages. There is a quiet rhythm to foiling. You hold the glass in one hand, peel the foil with the other, press it flat, then move on. It is meditative work, the kind of work I imagine my grandmother would have liked.

After foiling came soldering. I used a black patina on the solder lines so the colours of the glass would stand out without competing with shiny silver. The dark lines act like the contour of a sketch, holding the colours together. It also gives the panel a slightly older, more traditional feel, which I wanted as a contrast to the modern, almost abstract pattern.

The Frame and Finish

For the frame, I went with a thin brass U-channel. Brass warms up the amber and rose tones beautifully, and it stops the panel from feeling cold or sterile. After the frame went on, I cleaned the panel three times with a soft cloth and a gentle to make sure no flux residue or fingerprints would show in direct light.

Finally, I hung the panel in my studio window for a full day before I photographed it. I wanted to see how it behaved in cold morning light, midday sun and the long blue light of an Alaskan evening. It read differently in each one, which was exactly what I had hoped for.

Why This Piece Matters to Me

I serve almost three decades in the United States Air Force and the Air National Guard before I made my full-time work. That background taught me to pay attention to detail and to finish what I start. The Sunrise Panel is partly about colour and light, but it is also about the discipline of slow craft. Each piece has to be planned, then cut, then fitted, then soldered, then cleaned, then framed, then tested in real daylight. There are no shortcuts.

I hope when this piece finds its home, it will sit in a window where someone makes their morning coffee. I hope they look at it on grey days and feel a little lift. That, more than anything else, is why I keep making.

If you would like to see the Sunrise Panel in person, message me through the contact page. And as always, Copper, my studio companion, sends his regards from his favourite sunny spot on the workbench.