Arkansas Glassworks

03/19/2026

One long year ago...

03/17/2026

A harlequin diamond pattern in cathedrals. Made for Hickory Plains Baptist Church. The smoother cathedral glasses allow the landscape to show through.

03/11/2026

March 19th marks one very long year since the fire at the St. Joseph Center. Katherine Strause and I are grateful for finally landing on our feet with the help of the Firehouse Museum. Kathy’s work is featured this weekend as part of Second Friday Art Night. (see below) And I invite folks to come upstairs and see the progress that’s been made in recent weeks addressing damage to Arkansas Glassworks from the fire. Kathy was one of the ‘pioneer’ artists on the fourth floor of SJC and, as such, received fire, smoke and water damage. She will be glad to show you how she’s been restoring her oil paintings. I was on the ground floor, so my damage was from the water exclusively. A lot of books and patterns were lost, but the biggest challenge was to save the six boxes of bevel clusters. They were backed by cardboard and sealed in plastic. By the time we were let into the building a month after the fire, black mold had attacked the cardboard. I was reluctant to even look at them for some time, afraid they were unsalvageable. Turns out very few of the actual bevels were broken or stained, so cleaning and repackaging is what I’ve been at work on lately. Come check out the progress made and see window patterns that became windows over the past 30+ years. Friday, 5 to 8 pm, 1201 Commerce

03/07/2026

Lots going on in North Little Rock. My old home at the St. Joseph Center is no more, but SJC lives on. Although Our Lady of St. Joe’s, Sandy DeCoursey, has retired as director (she hasn’t gone far), Scott Shellabarger has taken the reins and is on the front lines to bring back the Innovation Hub as well. SJCA will take over as nonprofit supporter of the relaunched Hub, officially uniting my two favorite Central Arkansas non-profits. There are talks underway to discuss lease options with the new owners of the original Hub building, but there’s a second option to possibly lease the property that will soon come available when NLR’s central fire station moves to their new digs at 13th & Main. Scott has drawn up a petition to show community support for this option and I share it with you here. Please consider signing it.

And while the St. Joseph Center bolsters the Hub, the search is still on for 5 to 20 acres as close as possible to the core of NLR in order to to revive the farm. Sandy, Scott and Michelle have rallied their army of volunteers to be ready to plant and teach sensible farming as soon as land is secured. Contact Scott if you hear of any potential land sale. Long live urban farming!

Bring the Arkansas Regional Innovation Hub to Fire Station No. 1 in Argenta

02/12/2026

My studio upstairs in the Firehouse Museum seems to be morphing into an auxiliary showroom. Let's call it the Bunkhouse Gallery. This 2FAN (2nd Friday Art Night) exhibit downstairs - Friday 5-8 PM - is phase 2 for Meikel Church's collages and Valentine workshop. So I invited another favorite LR collage artist, Becky Botos, to complement Meikel. She brings lots of work to display and sell. Here's a couple of them.

01/13/2026

Thanks to everyone who came to Meikel Church's (and our first 2FAN) showing, and to those who climbed the stairs to visit my studio and that of Katherine Strause's. We'll be doing this every month, so if you didn't catch this one, maybe we'll see you in February or March.

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01/07/2026

This is the Firehouse Museum in MacArthur Park. Behind those upstairs windows is my new studio. A few months ago, the Board of Directors for the museum reached out to some of the folks who lost studios as a result of the fire at the St. Joseph Farmstead to offer two of the rooms formerly used as a hostel. I was lucky enough to be able to move into the west room and the very talented oil painter Katherine Strause is in the east room. We both feel extremely fortunate to have landed on our feet in such a beautiful place. Many thanks to Ann Ballard Bryan and the other board members for welcoming us.

The Firehouse Museum is also joining the roster of downtown venues that take part in Second Friday Art Night, beginning this Friday with new surreal collages by Meikel Church. Come nosh, see the art and meet the artist. We’ll have our studio doors open upstairs as well. Ready or not, here we come.

09/28/2025

New stained glass quilt squares are in my ARGlassworks shop on Etsy.

09/19/2025

Glass is on holiday, but clay is on for tomorrow

07/25/2025

This is one of the weirdest stained glass windows I have come across. Something alien about it. I wonder about the person who designed and built this back in 1915 or so. Were they receiving signals? This may well be the original Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Whatever it is, when I got it the cool amber starburst border was damaged, so I had to replace the central section of each side with another deep textured amber. I chose Kokomo’s amber ‘Whitney,’ a reproduction texture three decades off the mark, but it kinda matches. Framed it in red oak. SOLD on Marketolace.

07/22/2025

I went by St. Joseph’s today and saw all the windows were gone. The glass in those windows was made in the first decade of the 20th Century. They blew glass back then, blew it into large cylinders. Then they scored the cylinders, laid them flat and annealed them. The end result was a glass much different from today’s perfectly clear float glass. Blown glass had distortions, streaks, tiny air bubbles, all qualities home owners back in the day wished to avoid . But preservationists today, be they home owners or professional restorers, prize the distortions in the glass. So much so the process is copied in Germany and France and the glass is sold on the world market for about $30 per square foot. Sizes are limited, though. No one can reproduce antique glass in the sizes of St. Joseph’s lower sashes, close to 4 ft. by 4 ft. So what did they do with this treasure trove? Threw it into dumpsters and hauled it to the landfill.

Who are the wreckers today in central Arkansas? Do they all just wreck and dump? Thirty, fifty years ago, the big wreckers had ‘wrecking yards.’ Places where home builders on a budget or those who were wanting older, better built building materials with genuine character could find them. Oh sure, the Habitat For Humanity Re-Stores sell used building materials, but it’s in piecemeal amounts to be found among so much bric-a-brac and crappy furniture. I used to go to the one on South University looking for antique glass but I rarely found any. I guess the main reason why used building materials are so hard to find is that it takes time to take something apart. It’s so much easier to just tear it down.

07/18/2025

Fire Recovery Sale
SOLD

Stained Glass Window ‘Good Shepherd’
- Hand Painted 9” Creative Art Glass Medallion / stained glass
(cobalt blue, red, amber streaky, rose/brown)
- Measures 44”W x 12.5”H
- Border metal is 3/4” zinc w/ hooks attached for hanging
- Black chain included, cut to desired length

Originally: $550 On Sale: $275