I use GLASS EYE 2000 to design my pieces. All of these designs are in pre-production or purely a design exercise.

Protesting Fist with Bunun Tribal Border

This design came about after a few discussions with Te'Qin Windham, host of Community Convos in Taipei and a BLM Rally organizer. She also contributes to the BLM organization in Taiwan.

The BLM organization in Taiwan has found a close ally in the Indigenous Peoples of Taiwan. They found common grounds and a common cause. The raised fist in the center of this piece is a longstanding symbol of unity, solidarity, and resistance. The border pattern is found in Bunun traditional clothing.

This piece has three main elements: raised fist, the border, and the background. In early iterations of this design, I wanted to express an inner light radiating from the raised fist. All pieces here show white between the palm and fingers. In later iterations, the break-lines in the background also radiate from the center of the fist to enhance the glowing imagery. Ultimately, I felt the radiant lines were enough to express the inner light. However, I felt the white palm was distracting. The final design (not pictured) depicts radiant light from behind the fist, with darker glass in the palm.

The Raised Fist resides inside a Bunun pattern border, reflecting the black lives residing inside the borders of Taiwan. Early iterations had an enlarged border to draw focus to the tribal pattern. However, the large border overwhelmed the entirety of the design making it appear imbalanced. I considered using two colors in the background to represent the 4 cardinal directions of a compass-rose. However, my test audience thought it was a Christian Cross behind the fist. While there is a significant connection between Black Lives and Southern Baptists, I felt it detracted from my overall message.

The final design will have a single translucent background color, a single width border with overlapping corners, and squares leading into the break lines through the background into a brown-on-black fist.

Topologically Distinct Sets of Non-intersecting Circles

This design had my most personal motivation. I am a fan of the Numberphile YouTube Channel. They made a video on these intersecting circles based on Richard J. Mathar's publication.

I love the simple elegance of the design. The exhaustive nature of the intersection of the circles. And I love the idea that there are only 6 known solutions.

From a design standpoint, the hardest part was the uniformity. I basically treated each box as its own design held to a set of standards. Then I had to fit all of them in a compact, uniform space. Also, since this is a math and geometry problem, I wanted ONLY circles and lines. This proved to be a little bit harder than I initially anticipated... I think it was about fifteen separate design iterations before everything came together.

From a production standpoint, the circles on this piece will be the most challenging. Because everything is so uniform, any mistakes will be glaringly obvious. When I create this piece I will have a very low error tolerance. I am also challenging myself to use some of my more specific tools like diamond drill bits to make actual holes inside of glass circles-quite an unorthodox procedure. It will be challenging and I plan on breaking a lot of rules.

The small colored design is my concept coloring. I initially chose primary colors, Red Blue Yellow, in keeping with the simple theme. However, I was equally intrigued by the 4-color map theorem and decided I would use 4 variations of red, and I would only need 3 variations of yellow and blue.

Chaos is Inherent in all Compounded Things

This piece integrates the artistic heritage of stained glass with the majority religion of Taiwan. Historically, stained glass windows adorned the sanctuaries of Christian Cathedrals. To my knowledge there are no famous glass depictions of Buddhist or Taoist iconography, with the possible exception of The Buddha at Baroque Stained Glass Studio south of Sanken Ecological Park in Taoyuan.

This Buddha is based off the statue in Kaohsiung at the Fo Guang Shan Buddha Museum. During my research for this piece I learned quite a lot about the regional depictions of Buddha. Western depictions seem to depict an overweight and happy bodhisattva, though there are subtle and distinct differences across all of Asia. Taiwanese artists frequently depict what I originally thought was a hat. Instead they are 108 snails that come from a parable holding significant meaning to the Buddhist story.

The mandala pattern is based off of a mural I encountered on a bike path in Southern Taipei. The mural had complexities that I couldn't achieve through glass, though I loved the floral pattern so much I placed it behind Buddha. He is shown meditating in several locations: under a tree, on a lotus blossom, in the palm of a hand, on a lily pad, and various plinths and platforms. I love the way flowers look in glass, so I chose the lotus blossom.

I originally planned to make this design to fit an arched or peaked window, hence the mandala background. However, when I placed the lotus on a flat surface the double rounded window pattern really stood out. I could quickly design and retro-fit a pair of triangles in the negative space if this were to be installed in an arched window.

The second picture is composed of my concept colors. I like to see what I want before I can go see what the suppliers have available. Historically, buddhas are carved from stone or cast in gold. I loved the gold too much to even think about a stone color. I also wanted a color appropriate for a lotus blossom (bottom) which would also be used in part of the mandala (top). Something neutral for the background. Beyond that, I want the mandala colors to contrast and compliment the gold Buddha.

The third picture is my final design with supplier matched RGB codes. Color in glass is difficult, especially here in Taiwan. My supplier carries 47 styles of glass while my American supplier Kokomo Opalescent Glass makes over 20,000. Working within the local supplier's inventory keeps my costs reasonable. I could import everything from America, but my costs would skyrocket and design-to-production would be delayed due to shipping.

Five Blessings: Prosperity and Longevity

Circular variations of Mandarin characters pop up everywhere in Chinese art and architecture. The most common depictions are of the five blessings. Bats are often depicted encircling the symbols.

The green and red symbol was my first iteration of this design. To my "Western" eyes, it appears too Christmas-like.

While I was toying with the design and struggling to find appropriate colors for the pieces, I received news of the death of an elderly member of my wife's family. I felt compelled to use blue, symbolizing the wisdom and knowledge held by this person. Rather than focus on the loss, I wanted to depict them central to many of the blessings given to my wife and I. This realization sparked the gold symbol with red background. The white bands representing the paths of our lives crossing the elder's life at a point of mutual blessing.

The next significant iteration came from the realization that this elder crossed many lives, most specifically the lives of their 5 children. I prefer to have the symbol depicted in red, as that's the most common way. The blue vertical line representing the path of their life and the 5 horizontal gold lines representing the intersection of the 5 children. Each subsequent design contains one less horizontal line intended to represent smaller families.

I believe this pattern could be easily modified to represent a mother & father and up to 7 children.

Magic: The Gathering Collection

One of my favorite MTG expansions is Ravnica: City of Guilds. The creators have developed the story and characters within the city three separate times over the last fifteen years. I have crafted 5 out of the 10 designs pictured here. You can see them in my MTG Gallery page.

I am most proud of the finished Rakdos design and I most anticipate completing Selesnya. I want to re-do Simic and possibly Golgari.

Gaming Collection

Just the beginning!

Northern Indiana Anodize Logo Challenge

This was a challenge inspired by The Daily Logo Challenge. I drove past this business daily.

Rather than create an entirely new logo, the challenge for me was to integrate a color gradient into glass, which is quite a challenge (for anyone)! Because glass does not mix or blend like paint or pixels, I have to use 7 or more different sheets of glass to create the rainbow. The center text would be a white rectangle of glass. I would mask off the white lettering with tape then cover the exposed glass with Pebeo Porcelaine 150 Paint. The text would be easier if colors were inverted (black text on light color glass), this is because you can't effectively apply light paint on dark glass. Alternatively, the letters could be sandblasted onto flashed glass but this would add a significant cost to the overall design.

Logo 1: the colors are too discreet, they are uneven and the emblem is too close to the border of the design. When I make a design that would go into a frame or in a window, there needs to be a separation between the subject and the perimeter, often this is accomplished with a border pattern. However, I like the slick borderless look.

Logo 2: I restricted the rainbow to the emblem. Then I expanded the perimeter by 2 inches. If this piece were to be created and framed, it is common to have some of the frame overlapping the glass. I could probably get by with a 1 inch expansion, but 2 inches just looked a little cleaner. I think non-uniform width of the rainbow colored pieces is less obvious. The software doesn't do a great job of illustrating the background glass. It would be textured and transparent similar to the ANG Fire Protection piece in the Military Gallery.

Logo 3: This is my final design (pending hypothetical client approval). I would use dark glass for the large NIA logo, a dark blue for the perimeter, textured-transparent clear/white glass for the background, and two rows of rainbow colored glass just above and below the text. I think the rainbow effect blends seamlessly when it is slightly obstructed by the NIA lettering.

Temple Bird

Often times clients want to have an existing image displayed in glass. It can be very difficult to maintain high fidelity in the design. Small pieces and textures get lost, gradients and tones get homogenized and overall detail deteriorates.

This temple bird was displayed on the side of one of the many Taiwanese Taoist Temples that I cross daily. The art is distinct and beautiful, AND it presents a lot of challenges for me to faithfully recreate in glass.

First, the border's swirls, curls, and Fleur-de-lis. I love they way these come out in glass. They even have dedicated tools for making uniform swirls. The flower at the center of each edge was a good starting point for me, then I enlarged the Fleur-de-lis to that it held a bit more prominence. I considered overlapping into the body of the piece, but ultimately decided against it. The piece is so busy as it is.

The bird and stones were next for me to work on. There are some wonderfully textured gray and slate colored glass productions from Kokomo Glass which I would use if I ever make this piece. The bird was simple enough to design and is a perfect candidate to enhance the texture with some glass paint.

Next was the tree. I elected to remove some of the pink swirls on the right side of this piece and expand the trunk of the tree. If this ever goes to production I would probably remove the pink, blue, and orange swirls on the left side as well. I think they detract from the overall design. I would also reduce some of the busy leaves in the top left quadrant of the design and perhaps introduce more branches. The leaves would be a good candidate for paint along the midrib and veins. The design looks much messier than the photo and the paint would help clarify the final product.

The blue element just left of center at the top is another thing I would change. It is unclear what it is in the original. I would remove it or retool it as a butterfly or insect.