Celtic Cross

I can make this for you on commission for $150 (14″) or $100 (8″).

Now that Christmas is over, it’s time for a little winter project. It’s been a long time since I did a window panel using lead came so that sounded like a project to me. Looking around our house for a window that doesn’t already have a piece in it, I decided the family room needed something to compliment my collection of the wooden fish from Newfoundland (Sarah), the leather coasters from Chile (Marcela & Ximena) and the ironwood cactus from Arizona (Maneau). Since there is an international theme going on there, I thought a Celtic Cross might be nice… I’ll dream of Ireland as I work on this.

I enjoyed many hours surfing the net looking at images until I finally settled on one that caught my eye. The design is simple but has that wonderful interwoven celtic knot style to it. I also planned to put two borders around the cross to set it off so that took another evening of measuring and drawing. The design phase of any project is one of my favorite parts of this hobby… it’s the creativity that I find so very satisfyingly.

Next, to choose the colors. There are so many options that there were several “right” choices. After alot of humming and hawing, I settled on a dusty rose cross with a burgundy circle around the center and a burgundy border around the outside- both colors of glass cut from the same type of wavy cathedral. For the background, I chose an iridescent rough rolled glass that will show the colors at night when the lights in the room are on. The outer border would be the same irridescent glass.

On many days, the drive to and from work were spent dreaming about this project from the rear seat of the car pool reliving every step of the process. What a great way to pass the time. The cutting and grinding took about 6 hours spaced out over several evenings.  Foiling took about 3 hours. Cutting the lead came and zinc frame came took about 3 hours. Soldering took 1 hour and washing up, applying the patina and polishing was about 1 hour. Total project time about 14 hours – give or take.