Radical Transparency
At Beacon Design Studio, we have always believed in being open and honest with what we’re making and how we’re making things. There are enough shady corporations out there and we don’t want anything to do with that culture.
I thought you were a one woman shop, why do you use we?
I dunno, “we” tends to sound more professional. And ask any small business owner, we wear a million different hats on a day to day basis so it honestly feels like “we” is appropriate. As of right now though, I’m a one woman design studio, but that could change in the future.
What’s up with your branding?
The colors are inspired by my three favorite flowers: Black-eyed Susan’s, Purple Coneflowers, and Salvia (not the drug). I swirled them together with some blacks and blues (a nod to the night sky) to get a funky, retro vibe. The images on the homepage are inspired by the mountains, stars, and Hudson River that I’m lucky enough to see on a near daily basis.
Why is stained glass so expensive?
I was a stained glass lover before I started making stained glass, so I feel you. I promise I’m always looking for ways to save you money, like following sales and using coupons on supplies, utilizing quality recycled packing material, and buying in bulk when it’s cost effective. But the simple fact is that the process of making stained glass is done entirely by hand, so here’s a breakdown of all the steps.
Design: Every design is drawn by hand digitally, with several iterations ensuring glass cuts are feasible. Once an initial drawing is completed in Procreate, it’s converted into a vector drawing in Sketch so it can be scaled and more easily adjusted. Once the design is finished, we run print tests to make sure the sizing matches what we had in mind.
Glass Cutting: Glass pieces are picked out for the pattern and each piece of glass is washed, dried, then wiped down with alcohol to ensure it’s super clean. The pattern is traced on to the glass by hand and each pattern piece is cut from glass one by one.
Glass Grinding: After every glass piece is cut, each piece has it edges ground by a glass grinder. This step is crucial because not only does it grind the glass pieces down to exact sizes so every piece fits together perfectly, but it also roughens every edge so that copper foil tape can stick to the edges.
Copper Foiling: Once every piece is ground, every glass piece and every edge is scrubbed by hand to remove any residual glass grinding residue. Glass pieces are laid out to dry. When the glass pieces are dry, their edges are foiled with copper tape, by hand. Copper tape is what ultimately gets soldered together so it’s important that the copper tape is well burnished to every edge of the glass.
Soldering: When all of the glass pieces are copper foiled, they’re fit together and soldered. Solder and flux are used to “attach” the pieces together and create the final piece. Once the piece is soldered, it’s washed with soap and water, sprayed down with flux remover, and every solder line is scrubbed with steel wool and melamine sponges to ensure no flux is left on the piece.
Patina: If the design calls for it, black or copper patina is applied to the cleaned solder lines to change their color.
Polish: When all the other steps are complete, polish is applied to the stained glass piece to protect the solder lines from dust and corrosion. The polish is gently buffed on with a clean microfiber cloth.
On top of the labor intensive art of making stained glass are other logistical costs:
Shipping & shipping insurance
Stained glass materials
Branded packing supplies
Webhosting/ecommerce
My hope is that this helps you understand why stained glass, and any handmade art for that matter, seems so expensive. More than anything I want to share my passions with anyone interested, but I also need food and shelter so I can continue making and sharing my art with you.