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long life symbol
Wow! I love this artwork! I have the ability to hang any of my artworks that are not out in galleries in my living room window, and I used to hang this one much more than many of my other stained glass artworks. I say "used to" because I gave this artwork to a cousin a few years ago.

This artwork is a rendition of one of the many Chinese characters for Long Life. The colors are subtle, and the line values (the different thicknesses of the leadlines) make this a truly stunning artwork.

The picture above shows this example of Chinese art hanging in my window with the blinds down. I chose this as the primary photo because it shows how well the subtle colors work together. They do so when the blind is up, too, but only to the human eye, not to a camera. Below are two pictures that show the artwork with the blind up.

long life characterchinese art,long life chinese character,chinese symbol for long life,chinese stained glass
As you can see, my camera cannot make the colors all come out evenly. In the photo above on the left, the outer green border is perfect - more accurate even than the main photo at the top of this page - but the purple is too dark near the bottom and the blue is too light near the top. The photo on the right shows off the artwork even more poorly, but gives a good sense of the size of this artwork and how well it fits my living room window.

The artwork is 30" in diameter, and the light oak frame (that doesn't show up well in ANY of these photos) makes the overall size just under 34".

I used 1/4" lead for the tiniest lines in the artwork, 3/8" lead for the thicker lines in the outer border, and 3/4" lead for the thickest lines that define the long life symbol in the center. 3/4" lead is very hard to work with, especially where the lines had to be perfect looking arcs, that is, parts of circles. Overall this simple-looking design was incredibly difficult to lead together. Study the shapes of the pieces of glass and factor in the precision necessary for a geometric design like this and you'll start to get an idea of how challenging this was to make.

Some of the 3/4" lines are overlays, that is, they are laid on top of the artwork only. This I do when it would have been impossible to achieve the right look any other way and still have an artwork that would not break over time.

This is an example, I believe, of an artwork that could not ever be achieved in copper foil, and still exhibit the precision necessary to make this the completely effective artwork that it is. Sometimes, I hear people who do only copper foil or mostly copper foil tell me that they can do everything in foil that another artisan could do in lead... Seeing is believing! I'm waiting... This artwork makes me glad that I have both foil and lead in my bag of tricks.

Originally, this artwork was priced at $4400.00. I mentioned above that I gave this artwork to a cousin; I forgot to mention that she lives far away from me in Atlanta (I live in Denver). So I am no longer able to enjoy this artwork directly, but I love knowing that someone else I love is loving it.


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