“Stained Glass” Lamp

For my Upcycling Project, I am going to be making a “stained glass” lamp out of recycled acrylic scraps. 

Stained glass window at the Notre-Dame de Paris

Stained glass has been around for thousands of years, starting with the Egyptians and Ancient Romans. It gained popularity in Europe around the 12th century with some of the most popular examples being stained glass windows in cathedrals. During the Renaissance, its style moved from Gothic cathedrals to something more classical. During the Reformation, many stained glass windows were smashed, meaning many traditional stained glass methods were forgotten until the 19th century. With renewed interest in mediaeval churches, more Gothic-style churches were being constructed. This included the popularity of stained glass windows depicting scenes from the Bible, and trends emerged for stained glass windows to borrow directly from famous oil paintings.

In the modern age, however, stained glass has become much more abstract. Since pieces of glass can’t be directly blended together, the style lends itself to a form of geometric abstraction where images can be formed from primitive shapes.

Breakfast Stained Glass, Mociun

Personally, I find the use of primitive and organic shapes to create the most interesting forms when it comes to design. I especially like the use of colour in lamps since they are designed to disperse light. To me, stained glass is one of the earliest forms of a lamp, as they were illuminated by sunlight. I do, however, want to steer towards the modernist take.

Stained glass interacting with light

Over the past few months, I have been designing and fabricating lamps out of coloured acrylic, and have amassed bags full of laser cutting scraps. It has always felt wasteful to just toss my acrylic scraps after I have finished a cut, so I have been saving them in the hopes that I can find a new use. 

My plan is to use a hot press to melt scraps of similar colours to create new sheets that I can laser cut. From there, I plan on joining them with acrylic cement and going over the seams with raised paint to create a soldered effect(I don’t think plastic and molten metal would agree with each other). 

In terms of design, I want to focus on primitive shapes, i.e. squares, circles, and triangles, in order to create a sense of cohesion. Since I want the lamp to be rectangular, I don’t want there to be organic shapes ending at sharp ninety degree angles. I am also working on creating random patterns in Processing so that I can streamline the actual design (I tend to spend a lot of time on this part of the process). I’m not sure if I want to make a hanging light fixture or a table lamp, but that is something I can figure out when I get there.

Sources:

Cover Image

https://www.grassmoorglass.co.uk/a-brief-history-of-stained-glass

2 Comments. Leave new

  • This sounds like a really fun way to reuse scraps that you make yourself. I hope that using plastic might help make this project easier than using glass. Your idea seems to be very fleshed out and I would be excited to see the final project. I am curious about this hot press too. Is it something on campus that you have access to, or something you use for your previous lamp making projects you mentioned?

  • This sounds like a great way to reuse scraps while making a beautiful lamp! I’m curious about the process of melting scraps with a hot press. I was wondering if you could make patterns in the new sheets, such as melting the colored scraps into gradients or adding random speckles of other/similar color.

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