Steve Skelton not only captures an image with his artwork, he brings it to life.
Steve's Custom Stained Glass, 425 Joliet St. in Aurora, which is both Skelton's art studio and home, creates custom leaded glass and Tiffany-style glass work for clients.
The soft colors, warm hues and many textures and designs of Skelton's glass illuminate homes throughout Colorado with an abstract distortion of light that constantly changes with the movement of the sun.
"It always begins with a design," Skelton said heading to his drawing room in the basement of his home. "After an initial consultation with a client on what they want, I create a cartoon or drawing, and if it's approved by the client, it's a start of the piece."
Of course the drawing is not what breathes light into the piece, Skelton said. It's the glass.
"During my consultations with clients I bring glass samples or colors I'd think they'd like or would work best with the image they are trying to capture," Skelton said. "I end up choosing most of the glass for clients because they trust my experience."
Skelton has been working with leaded and Tiffany glass for 33 years.
As an alum of Michigan State University, Skelton originally studied hospitality/hotel management, but quickly discovered a career in stained glass and an opportunity to run his own business appealed much more to his relaxed lifestyle.
In the same room where Skelton created the drawing for the glass piece, he demonstrates how he cuts the glass to match the drawn pattern.
Skelton places a piece of glass over the pattern and with a glass cutter, traces the pattern below. Then, with a small hammer, he taps the glass along the outline to release the piece.
"You have to be extremely precise when cutting the glass," Skelton said. "It's not so much as cutting, but fracturing it."
It takes Skelton about five hours to cut each individual piece for a project. From there, it's another four or five hours to foil or sotter the glass pieces together.
While there are two methods to designing a stained glass piece, Skelton said he prefers the Tiffany-style copper foiling because it allows for greater detail in designs than does the lead-based foiling.
All together, creating one glass piece can take Skelton up to 16 hours.
"It's time consuming and labor intensive," he said. "Plus the price of glass, that is why stained glass is not cheap."
Skelton's pieces cost anywhere from $100 to $800, and he said his prices are much lower than the competition because he is just a one-man studio.
"I can charge typically 30 to 50 percent less because I don't have the overhead other studios do," he said.
Stained glass artwork is a luxury item, Skelton said. So naturally in a slow economy it would seem business would slow, but Skelton said it has remained pretty steady.
"I do three or four projects a month and sometimes only two if they are larger pieces," he said. "I also have an Ebay store where I ship small orders."
Abstract designs, Mission-style artwork and Art Deco are the most common design requests Skelton receives. His favorite designs are abstract pieces because he said he can use all types of glass, colors and shapes for the designs.
"I make a living where I have always been able to make ends meet," he said. "I have a sense of achievement and it's a nice feeling to have people appreciate my work."
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