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i commissioned a steel artist to make a gate for my front courtyard. i had him design in various holes that i filled with mostly dichroic glass tiles. after dealing with slow artists (like that never happened to me), i've finally gotten it finished.



the tiles are on the top, and consist of 42 with clearcaped dichro, and a pair of center medallions of dichro on black, slumped over the bottom of a wok to make a convex surface. the bottom of the gate is woven copper strips.

That is cool Charlie. Can we have detail shots?

Is that a carved pumpkin?

Charlie, that's really beautiful, a great combination. Do you have close up shots? How did you adhere the glass?

Leslie

Don Burt wrote:That is cool Charlie. Can we have detail shots?

Is that a carved pumpkin?

i'll try to get some more in the coming days.

it's a hollow ceramic pumpkin. i put a candle in it, but could just put it over a light just as well. good forever, doesn't rot or smell, and i can just put it away in the garage for the 11 months of the year i don't need it.

Leslie Ihde wrote:Charlie, that's really beautiful, a great combination. Do you have close up shots? How did you adhere the glass?

Leslie

i'll get some soonly.

i cut a piece of 1/4" float glass to fit in the hole, and used clear silicone glue on both sides of that to hold the tiles on. the tiles are 1/4" larger than the holes.

the center slumped sections were done the same way, except i used a few pieces of 1/4" float to build up the center section to reach the back of the inside surface.

I like that Charlie, I noticed a lot of gates on entry ways of large houses on my long drive to Fredricksburg Texas (Lots of country driving) about a month ago that had the nice cut out designs on them. The glass really makes it stand out. It looks great.

charlie wrote:i commissioned a steel artist to make a gate for my front courtyard. i had him design in various holes that i filled with mostly dichroic glass tiles. after dealing with slow artists (like that never happened to me), i've finally gotten it finished.



the tiles are on the top, and consist of 42 with clearcaped dichro, and a pair of center medallions of dichro on black, slumped over the bottom of a wok to make a convex surface. the bottom of the gate is woven copper strips.

pretty damn kewl charlie! ) now for the closeups
D

LOVE it! I can hardly wait to see close-ups!

What a stunning entrance! Excellent work.

Charlie,

The gate looks great! How are you attaching the tiles to the gate?

Susan

Susan Moore wrote:Charlie,

The gate looks great! How are you attaching the tiles to the gate?

Susan

here's a closeup. the colors of the dichro change depending upon the light. this was taken near sunset.



the tiles are attached with silicone to a sandwiched backing piece of float.

could you post a pic of the other side of the gate....interested in seeing how you assembled this

doctac wrote:could you post a pic of the other side of the gate....interested in seeing how you assembled this

it looks identical. hold up your monitor to a mirror and it would be the same.

i basically made twice as many tiles, and then cut float tiles to fit the holes. the tiles are 1/4" larger than the holes. chose the thickness of the float to be the same, or just a hair thinner than the door. silicone the float piece to the back of one tile, have swmbo hold that up on one side, goop up the back of the other tile, and smoosh them together. tape and let sit for 24 hours.

Charlie,

Thx for the close up, now we can see your glass too! I like the colours you chose and I like the way you incorporated the gate design into your glass design on the medallions.

Susan

Fun Charlie

Ain't ahht great and ain't it great to have some for yourself.

Hi Charlie, it's Steve's wife Eileen! Wow! I love it. Great work. I bet it is beautiful when the sun shines on it.

Happy Turkey Day.

Charlie: I love it!!!! One of the reasons that I love Arizona is that the architecture has its own personality. There are not that many places where you can go and enjoy an adobe home with cactus in the yard and a beutiful iron and glass gate. Good for you...

That would make me happy every time I came home. What was it like collaborating with the metal worker? Did s/he basically just cut your design, or was there more to it?

love it. lucky for you it would look odd in MD....

Cool gate but cool house too! Do you have any pictures of the whole place?--I'd love to see it. Its like the complete opposite of here! Maybe I'll dig out a photo of our place....
Amy

Cheryl wrote:That would make me happy every time I came home. What was it like collaborating with the metal worker? Did s/he basically just cut your design, or was there more to it?

love it. lucky for you it would look odd in MD....

it was....different.

we interviewed 4 different companies for a gate, looking at design books, a bunch of proposals, getting bids, etc, and didn't really feel that they were listening to us very well. my wife happened to be in the local coffee shop getting her usual mocha cocoa lowfat latte whatever and was overheard by another patron when discussing it with the counter dude. they said 'oh, you ought to talk to gordon' who happened to be the ex-president of the sonoran arts league (http://www.sonoranartsleague.org/). we called him up, he came over, did some rough measurements and went away. he came back with some sketches. we had our input into some changes, he then came back a few weeks later with a full sized design on paper that we liked, so signed a contract for it.

being an artist, he then promptly forgot about us. every couple of weeks we'd call and leave a msg for him; he'd call back and give us a status report of what's been accomplished so far. it took about 2 months to get it done and installed. since the holes weren't exactly the same size and shape, i couldn't start my part, although i had made a bunch of testers and ordered all the material already. it took about 2 weeks before i could produce the tiles and install them. he still hasn't come back to take pictures for his portfolio although we've run into him at various art functions around town.

i have a painter friend in tucson with the same malady. even his wife says that 'tom does things on tom-time, not normal time'.