any began creating their own masterpieces in glass. Today there is an increasing range of possibilities because of the new areas such as sand blasting, fusing and laminating. The most important aspect of stained glass remains the glass itself. Glass is composed mainly of sand and silica. It is heated to a temperature of 2,000 degrees, until it is the consistency of taffy. The colors are created by the addition of metallic oxides because the glass does not have a pigment in it like oil paints. Since white light is a combination of all the colors of the rainbow, the metals in the glass cause the glass to act as a "filter", to remove the entire light spectrum, but the color you see. To get green, you add iron to the sand mixture, causing the entire color spectrum to be absorbed by the glass, but green. To get pink color in glass, you must add pure gold to the mixture and so on. Because there is no pigments in glass, there is nothing to fade like oil paints. The color of glass will be as brilliant 700 years from now as it is today. IV.IMPLICATIONS FOR NEW SITUATIONSOne day I would love to travel to France to visit the Chartes Cathedral which is also know as the Cathedral of Notre-Dame. I would love to see the exquisite stained glass art, which contains no less than one thousand three hundred and fifty subjects, with over three thousand figures. I would like to see the "Beautiful Window", the Rose Window, and "The Life of Christ Window." My daughter was in France in the March 1999, and she brought be back some beautiful post-cards. She said the stained glass windows were more beautiful than the pictures on the post-cards could show.The stained glass piece that I have been working on with two of my friends has been a wonderful learning experience. It has most certainly increased my appreciation of the art form. One day I would like to design and complete a piece without any help. I seem to find ideas for p...
