Stained Glass and Snow

Last Updated on April 20, 2018 by lydiaf1963

I’ve mentioned before how my sister Laura is a stained glass artist. She wrote this post about how she restored an old window awhile back. She designed and made a gorgeous panel for a pub in Maine. This time last week we took a road trip to deliver it. We traveled about 1300 miles round trip and had a blast.

It was kind of funny how this commission came her way. Her ex-husband lives in Maine and was a regular at The Old Mill Pub in Skowhegan. The owners wanted to change the panel they had in their entry, which still had the name of the former owners. When her ex showed them a panel she’d made for him, the owners contacted her. There was lots of back and forth about the design, the colors and the type of glass she’d use, but eventually they settled on the details and she got to work. She made her panel using the copper foil method, along with a little help from Penny the cat. The center medallion with the lion was painted by Jenell Willey a friend of Laura’s and a local art instructor. She did an incredible job and her work really sets off the piece.

Laura had a couple of long nights trying to complete the panel, sandwiched between her full time job plus a part time job and church activities. Finally the day came when she was able to put down her soldering iron and polish the panel. We packed it between a couple sheets of insulating foam, folded down her rear seats and loaded it into the back of her car. There was just enough room for our luggage.

We hit the road around around 6:30 am last Friday and headed north, taking Interstate 95 for most of the journey. It took us about 13 hours including rest stops. It was my first trip to Maine. We had some silly conversations. For example, after some consideration, we determined we had used the restroom in every state on the Eastern Seaboard except for Rhode Island. After consulting a map, I concluded I’d managed the same feat for all of the Gulf Coast states. What an accomplishment!

The sun was setting when we arrived at my former brother in law’s cabin in Central Maine. He graciously opened his home to us and we had a nice visit with him and spent some time admiring his home which originally was a converted barn used as a seasonal cabin. He’s a very capable carpenter and has done some really nice work to renovate the place. It will be spectacular when he’s finished. The cabin is located on a hill with a dirt track leading up to it. Most of the snow had melted and it was a muddy mess. The Eastern Shore of Maryland is paralyzed by a couple inches, in Maine they’re used to dealing with several feet of snow on the ground. As you can imagine there are lots of 4 Wheel Drive vehicles.

Saturday morning was cold and overcast, but we got to see lots of the Maine countryside on the way to the Old Mill Pub to deliver the panel. I noticed many older homes had an attached barn. Very clever considering the amount of snow they get up there. The pub owners and family were very happy with the panel and made sure we had an excellent meal afterwards. The Dore family, the current owners, gave the old panel to the previous owners, who were thrilled to get it back.

This was a quick trip, and we didn’t see Maine in her best light because of the weather. In fact, we ran into some snow on the way home. I couldn’t talk Laura into making a side trip into Rhode Island to “complete our set” of East Coast states, but once we were out of the snow we made good time and arrived home tired, but refreshed by the journey and the change of scenery.