`Most of my designs are very specific to the customer, often incorporating an interest or hobby. I’ve done a lagoon for a scuba diver, a Western scene for a `Wild, Wild West’ fan, a fighter jet for a retired Air Force pilot,” says Ann L. Leslie-Snyder of the stained-glass windows she creates in her Lake in the Hills home studio.
“The most elaborate was a mirrored glass that duplicated the carving on a massive, antique sidebar. The oddest request I ever got was to do a gory, Jack-the-Ripper scene for a front door. I didn’t do that one.”
Leslie-Snyder, 47, says she became a stained-glass artist by accident, after previous careers as a television producer/director and a real estate agent. In 1978, she took a stained-glass class while selling real estate. “Real estate was good money, but it didn’t make me happy like working with glass did,” she recalls. “Then, my brother died. Death has a way of making you want to do what makes you happy.”
Other than the one class and a soldering lesson from a plumber friend, Leslie-Snyder is self-taught. “I learned by trial and error. It was six years before I really knew what I was doing,” she says. “People think artistic talent comes naturally. But the truth is, it takes a lot of practice and work.”
Today customers find her through word-of-mouth and at the 15 to 20 Chicago-area art shows where she exhibits her work each year. Her husband, Brant Snyder, a high school teacher she met at a Star Trek convention, is her show salesman.
Some homeowners know exactly what design they want her to create. Others browse through her portfolios, books and files of pictures for ideas. “I have a cloud file, a mountain file, a ship file,” she says. “If we can’t find the right picture, I go to the children’s section at the public library, where the illustrations in the children’s books are so rich and detailed.”
Leslie-Snyder sketches the design on graph paper, then colors it with colored pencils. She doesn’t order the glass until the customer OKs the sketch and price.
Her prices start at $50 a square foot and rise with the addition of bevels, glass jewels, hand-blown glasses and etching. The most expensive glass she uses is dichroic, which is $100 a square foot wholesale and has a metallic coating. Another pricey addition is drapery glass, a variegated glass she sometimes uses for flower petals.
“Stained glass artist” is a misnomer, says Leslie-Snyder, because most of the glass is not stained; it is colored during the glass-making process. And, the artist does not make the glass; she assembles pieces of it to create a design.
“A lot of people think I make the glass in my studio,” she says. “When I lived in Elgin, the city sent out an inspector who asked to see my glass furnaces.”
Before she orders the glass for a project, Leslie-Snyder usually visits the customer’s home to check what colors she likes, how she lives and the type of lighting.
She orders glass, both hand-blown and factory-made, from two Chicago wholesalers that buy from American glassmakers and import from Europe, the Republic of Korea and South America.
In her basement studio, where the walls are lined with pieces of glass filed upright in wooden dividers, Leslie-Snyder draws the design to scale. This is called a cartoon.
For a square or rectangular piece, she builds three outside sides first with U-shaped channels made of zinc, brass, lead or metal combinations. Then she assembles the pieces of glass on the cartoon, working toward the middle of the piece.
She cuts each piece of glass to size by scoring it with a tiny wheel cutter and then snips off the excess with pliers. She sands the glass edges with an electric sander. Then she connects them with H-shaped metal interior channels. She cuts the channel metal to size with a small, electric, radial saw with a fine-toothed blade.
Once the pieces are assembled, joints are soldered on one side, using an electric soldering iron that resembles a cattle prod. Next, she flips the piece over and fills the joint grooves with cement. Then she solders the joints on that side.
For a three-dimensional piece, she uses pliable, copper foil strips to connect the glass, soldering the strips to form channels.
Safety is important in this business, Leslie-Snyder notes. She wears safety glasses to keep glass particles out of her eyes and uses an umbrella-shaped vent to pull soldering vapors away from her worktable.
Depending on her mood, she plays movie soundtracks or Renaissance or Christmas music while she works.
“If I’m really tired, I’ll put on ’60s rock `n’ roll,” she says. “Fall is my busy season because so many orders are Christmas gifts. Then, I get as little as three hours of sleep a night. I can do that for a few weeks, then take a day to rest.”
Most of Leslie-Snyder’s work is for homeowners–windows, sidelights, room dividers, front doors, cabinet doors and fire screens. Her customers usually attach their stained-glass windows to the existing, interior frames or hang them in front of existing windows. Either way, they can take the windows with them when they move.
“Rarely do people leave them behind,” she says. “The exception is the people who add the glass to the house specifically to upgrade it for resale. My last home had three pieces of stained glass and sold to the first couple who saw it.”
Leslie-Snyder’s customers also include some custom home builders, restaurants and businesses.
Leslie-Snyder and her husband spend their spare time with their Weimaraner dogs, Wanagi Skan (Lakota for “gray spirit”) and Wakhdi Hiyaya (Lakota for “she comes forth”). And, they fly a low-wing, two-seated airplane to Midwestern airports, where they swap stories with fellow pilots.
For more information, contact Ann Leslie-Snyder, Leslie Studios, 2961 Brisbane Dr., Lake in the Hills, Ill. 60102. Telephone: 847-669-2781.
