I started on the piece in the early 1980s. We had just recently built a home and I wanted a large piece to act as a divider between the bedrooms and the atrium, giving the illusion of a hallway. The atrium was located right off the bedrooms and included a rock waterfall, so I wanted a tropical theme piece for that area.
When finished, the Parrot measured 4′ x 5′. You will notice that because of the weight of the piece, it was built in two sections with reinforcement between the two. I had a local carpenter build the wooden frame around it from wood that was harvested from our property.
At this point, I had not been working in stained glass very long, so this was a huge challenge for me. But, as with everything else in life, I learned as I went. I used textured green glass for the trees to give it the look of leaves and I was lucky enough to find several pieces that worked perfectly for the bird’s body and feathers. The mountains were a streaked gray opaque and the water was a dark blue water glass.
It hung in our house for many years until we later built another home. I couldn’t bear to leave it behind, so we brought it with us and installed it in our new home. Since then we have moved on to build another home. By this time I had dreams of starting another big piece so we decided to leave it behind for the new owners.
