New Gateway Site

Just discovered Wix and am in the process of building a new gateway which will link to products for sale on CafePress, Zazzle and maybe also on StainedGlassPhotography.com Trying to publicise some of the great new, fairly upscale, products now available though print on demand. Check it out at Fine Art Designs.

I have been busy and so it is timely to provide an update on some of my stores on CafePress and Zazzle.

1. What started off as a showcase for gift items incorporating Pre-Raphaelite art now has a rapidly-growing section devoted to the work of some artists from the Art Nouveau Movement. What brought this about was the discovery that some Art Nouveau and Art Deco items were listed as 'best-sellers' and so I decided to create some offerings aimed at meeting the demand.

2. On Zazzle I redesigned Poe Gifts to be a little more Poe-esque rather than have the plain vanilla off-the-peg store. I still view it as a work-in-progress and may tweak it after I have finished on the current phase of the Art Nouveau project.

3. I also gave PreRaphaeliteArt its own identity and store design. There is still much to be done in terms of populating it with items but I do like the design and I hope that visitors will find it attractive and be enticed to buy from it.

The opening of the Pre-Raphaelite exhibition at the Tate brings to mind what I believe to be one of the finest stained glass window designs by the two great Masters, Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris, who were right in the midst of the Pre-Raphaelite Movement. The window is in St Martin's Church in Brampton, a small, Cumbrian, market town just 9 miles east of Carlisle. The church is popularly known as 'The Pre-Raphaelite Church', partly because all of the stained glass is by the Morris Company, using designs by Burne-Jones, Morris and some later designers, and partly because the church itself was designed by Philip Webb, a Pre-Raphaelite architect.

The design that I wish to showcase here is 'The Pelicans' by Burne-Jones with foliage by William Morris. It forms the centre of a 5-light window which was commissioned by George Howard, a close friend of Morris, in memory of his father, Charles. The design is the subject of one of the funniest entries in Burne-Jones' book of accounts, which is more of a diary than a set of accounts, I would quote it here but can't locate the file so it will have to wait for another post.

As you are probably aware stained glass designs are often re-used several times over in different windows and this was certainly true of designs by Burne-Jones and others who designed for Morris Company. Contrary to this practice 'The Pelicans' was only used once, probably out of the respect shown by Morris for George Howard and his father Charles. It is my belief that this is one of the finest Morris windows, both in design and execution but you can judge for yourself.

It's that time of year...October 7th, anniversary of his death in Baltimore in 1849 and then Halloween. So, to mark the occasion, here are some Edgar Allan Poe gift items:

See other gifts available on Zazzle.

The Pre-Raphaelite Exhibition at the Tate in London is well underway and is receiving rave reviews. I was lucky enough to see the last one, in 1984, by routing a business trip through central London. Sadly, barring a miracle, I am unlikely to be able to see the present one. I have, however, designed some gift items incorporating some of these great works of art.

Browse other gifts from Zazzle.

....calendar time! Time to relaunch old calendars with a new year on them, time to design new ones. So far I have launched 5 brand new, never-seen-the-light-of-day-before, calendars. Three are devoted to Edgar Allan Poe - actually to illustrations of Poe stories by Harry Clarke. As well as being one of the top 3 Irish stained glass makers of all time (don't ask me who the other two are), Clarke was a superb book illustrator whose work embellishes two editions of Edgar Allan Poe's Tales of Mystery and Imagination. I have two wall calendars on CafePress one a large size and the other, what CafePress describe as "Oversize". last, not least, there is one on Zazzle.com which has the same artwork but is just a different size and format. If Poe's gothic horror stories are not your cup of tea perhaps I can interest you in a Pre-Raphaelite Beauties calendar. This features paintings from a selection of artists who painted in the Pre-Raphaelite style - including Rossetti, Burne-Jones, Millais and Waterhouse. The Pre-Raphaelites are enjoying a resurgence of interest as a result of the opening of a new exhibition at the Tate Gallery in London, the first major event of its kind in almost 30 years and I have decided to mark the occasion with some calendars devoted to the works of some individual artists who painted in that style. The first of these is devoted to the work of Gabriel Dante Rossetti and includes an interesting cross-section of his paintings spanning several decades.

Update

This is long overdue - almost 3 years to be precise - but better late than never!

In that time there have been a few new folders of images which may be found in the buildings section

which is to be found at the bottom of the home page. We also added an ornaments page and will shortly be updating our calendar offering.

The very latest news is the creation of 2 new stores on CafePress. Both have only tenuous links to stained glass but you might wish to take a look at them.

The first is dedicated to Victorian art, in particular the work of the Pre-Raphaelites. As you will be aware Burne-Jones was a member of that group as well as being a prolific designer of stained glass through his partnership with William Morris who also had ties to that group. Similarly Ford Madox Brown and Henry Holiday are generally associated with the Pre-Raphaelite school. In the new CafePress store you will find some gift items incorporating details from important works by Gabriel Dante Rosetti, Edward Burne-Jones, Millais, William Waterhouse and others. It is not an extensive collection but they are beautiful images.

The second is a departure in a very different direction. The store is called Poe Corner and, you guessed, the subject-matter is Edgar Allan Poe and his works with special emphasis on the illustrations of his Tales of Mystery and Imagination by an Irish artist called Harry Clarke.

Clarke is widely acknowledged as being one of the top 3 or 4 Irish stained glass makers of all time. His work is stunning. The designs are unusual and not everyone likes the gothic appearance of his figures but, putting that aside, no-one can deny that his windows are stunning in their overall appearance. By use of jewel-size pieces of glass and faceting as well as careful selection of glass for richness of colour Clarke achieved a sparkling effect which is rare, if not unique. The combination of the gothic-looking figures, brilliant and rich colours and sparkling effect makes Clarke windows unmistakeable.

Now, in addition to his stained glass work, Clarke was also a book illustrator and probably his most famous illustrations were of 2 editions of Edgar Allan Poe's Tales of Mystery and Imagination. The first 24 images are black and white line drawings but he later supplemented these with some colour plates and they are a perfect match for Poe's grisly, macabre and frightening stories. It is only in the past year or so that I have become involved with the life and works of Poe but he certainly has a world-wide following and I feel sure that there will be interest in items incorporating the Clarke illustrations. Here is a link to Poe Corner

Last, not least, when updating my calendar offerings I decided to design one specifically for Jesuits using some images of stained glass windows depicting some of the saints from the Jesuit Tradition. For the cover I used the above image which combines a beautiful stained glass rendering of The Sacred Heart with a prayer by Pedro Arrupe, a 20thC Jesuit. You can find the Jesuit calendar here.

The Basilica - A Virtual Pilgrimage

What started off as something called a Digital Postcard with perhaps 100-150 images of the Basilica has blossomed into (though I say it myself) a beautiful DVD based around over 250 images all set to music and packaged in a gorgeous cover.



Launch date is set for October 22nd when I will pick up the first edition from the printer in south Jersey and hot-foot them down to Washington where they will be put on sale in the Basilica shop.

If you look very closely at what will be the back of the cover you will see a montage of 25 different Madonnas which is being published as a poster. I have not seen a hard copy proof but if it looks anything like the digital file it will be absolutely stunning.

Both items will be on sale in the Basilica and eventually they will be available from the Basilica online store. In the meantime we have a limited number available for purchase from our website.

TO SEE SHORT TRAILER CLICK ON THE CANDLES



Be very patient, it takes several minutes to download and you may be asks to download a plug-in.

If you do not have the time or patience you can view a lower quality video version on YouTube

The Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception

I'm nearing completion of a new and exciting project involving images of the Basilica of the National Shrine in Washington DC. Although it is home to some fine stained glass, including windows by Charles Connick from the 1920's, the Basilica is far better known for mosaics and I believe boasts the largest collection of any building in the world.

Here is a link to a small selection of images of some of the mosaics.

Watch this space for further details of the project....

New folder

OK, I know that this is way overdue but better late than never...there is a new folder with photographs of the beautiful windows at the Second Reformed Church in Hackensack, NJ in the Buildings folder at StainedGlassPhotography.com

There are some other images which I intend to add including some of stained glass from the extensive collection at Glencairn Museum in PA. In addition I am now working on a project for the National Basilica in the course of which I have been documenting not only stained glass but also some of the gorgeous mosaics which comprise what I believe to be the largest collection of mosaics anywhere in the world.

New Shop

This is just a very brief announcement that today I opened a new shop which offers a selection of poetry, prayers and scripture on tiles. It is called, appropriately enough, VerseTile

We have launched the poetry section with some brand new items featuring poems by Emily Dickinson to which we will soon be adding many more works by poets from both sides of the pond. In the prayer section you will find tiles and tile boxes with the Lord's Prayer, the Serenity Prayer and the St Francis Peace Prayer, some accompanied by an image of stained glass. Last, not least, the scripture section begins with quotations from both Old and New Testaments including the ever-popular 23rd and 121st psalms, Jesus The Good Shepherd, the parable of the good Samaritan and Micah 6:8.

St John's Episcopal Church at Boonton - New folder

I recently had the good fortune to photograph some beautiful windows at St John's in Boonton and have uploaded a selection of them in this folder

There are 3 windows by Tiffany Studios - The Raising of Jairus's Daughter which, sadly, backs onto a church hall with less than perfect backlighting. The Good Samaritan and the Good Centurion.

Several of the images have been used to decorate ornaments and gift items which can be purchased from ChurchGiftshops.com with profits going towards the cost of repairing and restoring the windows.

StainedGlassPhotography images on book covers

I am pleased to announce that two important books on theology by Alister McGrath have been published with cover art incorporating two of our images. Both are the work of Blackwell Publishing and I have to say that they did a superb job of reproducing the images, which were of Henry Holiday windows in Calvary Episcopal Church in Summit, and the results look simply stunning. Here is a link to one of the two books on Amazon

Jersey Journal article about the Harry Clarke Studios windows in Bayonne

This week saw publication of an article by John Gomez, local historian and preservationist, about the beautiful stained glass windows by Harry Clarke in the church of St Vincent de Paul in Bayonne. Here is a link to the article which appeared in the Jersey Journal.

Boston Globe article

USAF chaplain Fr Tim Butler was back in Kyrgyzstan this Christmas and reused the slide show which I made for the Christmas of 2004. Here is a link to an article about it which was run by the Boston Globe on Christmas Eve.

New items on CafePress for people in recovery

Recently someone suggested to me that some of my photographs would be perfect to be combined with the Serenity Prayer.

Being the curious person that I am I decided to do a little research and discovered that there is artwork around which incorporates the Serenity Prayer but I didn't find the art to be as bold, striking and colourful as some of my images. In quite a number of instances on CafePress I actually found quite a few items which only had the prayer itself - perhaps in a decorative or coloured font but still just the text.

Yesterday I spent time creating quite a lot of items using some images which I think are appropriate. In order to maximise searchability I placed them in two new sections in my CafePress store, the first is simply called 'The Serenity Prayer' the second I have called 'Recovery'. The latter contains a couple of images which have nothing to do with stained glass but which I hope will have meaning to people in, and associated with, recovery.

In a sense wearing a t-shirt with the Serenity Prayer might be viewed as inconsistent with the 'anonymous' part of Alcoholics Anonymous but I feel sure that there are enough members who are proud of their years of sobriety to generate a demand for these products, whether it be something to wear or a decorative tile or fridge magnet.

Depending on the interest that they attract I will probably add to these sections, perhaps including items which incorporate other prayers. Meanwhile one thing that I am consciously doing more of is more of the smaller items such as magnets and buttons. I recently saw quite a few magnets with another photographer's work and they are really quite good. They are printed on metal which encloses the magnet and come in rectangular and round shapes. Whereas I had originally thought not to bother with something which may cost double it's price to ship CafePress have recently improved their shipping terms and one of the options is 4 items for $5.00 which I think may encourage shoppers to look around for 'fillers'.

Mary Magdalene and the Da Vinci Code

The recent resurgence of interest in Mary Magdalene which has resulted from the release of the Da Vinci Code film leads me to post a reminder that we have a set of Frameable Art cards with three different depictions of Mary Magdalene in stained glass. Perhaps not in keeping with the storyline in Dan Brown's book, all three images show Mary at the scene of the Resurrection. In the first she is reaching for Him and (not pictured) there is an angel behind with a scroll saying "touch me not". In the second there is a close-up of her in awe with an angel behind. The third is a design by Edward Burne-Jones for a window by William Morris which depicts Mary mistaking the Risen Jesus for a gardener.

The cards may be purchased as a set here or individually here

This entry has absolutely nothing to do with stained glass or photography. It is simply to announce the August publication of my first novel.

The book is a contemporary thriller called 'Risk Premium' and it has a plot which I think readers will find to be both relevant and controversial. Chapter 1 may be read in its entirity at the website RiskPremium.net though I defy anyone to guess the plot of the book from what is online. Also from the website it is possible to place orders both for the standard paperback edition and for a special signed, numbered and limited hard-bound edition.

The book has nothing whatever to do with stained glass and I must caution that it is aimed at an adult audience and contains both sex and violence, though not to excess.

Neil Ralley

Exciting new fund-raising concept

We have just launched a brand new fund-raising programme ChurchGiftShops.com

As some of you may know we began to use some of our images to create items for sale on CafePress. Late last year we were successful in helping Christ Episcopal Church in Riverton with their fund-raising by creating sets of ornaments incorporating some images of their stained glass. This coincided with the 150th anniversary of the church.

Impressed by the quality of the ornaments and calendars we decided to develop a programme which we could offer to a large number of churches and this is what we are now launching.

It really is very simple. What we are doing is setting up CafePress shops and accounts for churches which wish to participate. The churches will own the accounts and will be able to control all decisions regarding the items offered for sale, the pricing and the artwork which is used. Any profits generated from sales will be remitted directly to the churches and in addition it will be possible for churches to buy from the shops, in some cases at significant discounts, for their own local sales.

We plan to charge no fees for creating the shops, the way that they are set up enables us to take advantage of CafePress basic accounts which incurr no ongoing fees and there are no purchase commitments which need to be made. It really could not be simpler - it is free to set up, free to run and we have yet to find a downside. If people buy items from these shops then the churches will make money, if no-one buys anything then the only cost is the time we invest in setting up the shops.

The art which can be used to create items can come in many guises. It could be images from our portfolio, it could be pictures or even just scripture provided by the chuerches or perhaps some combination.

The range of items which can be produced is already extensive and is also constantly being added to. The ones which we believe are likely to be most successful and popular choices include ornaments, cards, posters, calendars, tote bags, tiles and tile-boxes but some items of apparel, mugs and bumper stickers may also appeal.

There are 3 distinct possibilities for fund-raising:

1) Online sales to members of participating churches and their friends and families.

2) Online sales to people totally unconnected with the churches who find the shop either via CafePress or our website.

3) Resale of products purchased by the church at church events.

Geography is not necessarily a problem either. Although it is likely that shipping logistics will dictate that it will be primarily of interest to churches in the US it is certainly not out of the question for others in Europe and elsewhere to participate. Even if it is impractical for churches outside the US to purchase their own items it is quite conceivable that they could benefit materially from sales of products incorporating their art which might prove to be highly desirable in the US and elsewhere.

If this is of interest then act quickly because we expect there to be a lot of interest and our resources are limited.

More ornaments and now available from Stained Glass Photography

Greatly encouraged by customers' reactions to them, we are steadily increasing the range of ornaments we are offering. Although they are not stained glass they do succeed in capturing the vibrant colours of the original windows and at less than $10 they make really great and relatively inexpensive gifts. Here is a link to our new webpage about them