Friday, October 15, 2010

Interview With A Star - Alla at FleetingStillness

I love stained glass. I have hundreds of photos of stained glass windows in churches and antique houses taken during my travels. I still hope one day I will have one… I wish I would know that our house is our permanent home!

Anyway, right now I am just admiring these human hand creations and of course, I am interested to know how someone came up with the gorgeous designs and bright ideas. I am very happy to have a stained glass artist with us today, with her beautiful stained glass works and a wonderful story.

Please meet Alla from FleetingStillness!


Q: How long have you been creating?
A: I have been creating different things since I was very young. I learned to sew at 6, to knit and crochet at 8 and made my own clothes. I have also worked with wood, drew with ink and ballpoint pens and had a photo lab in my bathroom. With all that background nothing stuck for a long time until I started working with stained glass.


It has been on my mind for years, but started as pure coincidence. Once when I was at a yard sale I saw some tools, a book and a box of glass for sale. I bought it all and that evening I cut my first piece of glass, wrapped it in foil and soldered it back together. It was as simple as that. The rest just came naturally.

Q: What do you sell and what is so special about your works?
A: I sell anything I think would be fun to make out of stained glass and have around the house: window panels, sun catchers, lanterns and refrigerator magnets.

Stained glass is an ancient medium that is very capricious. When working with stained glass, it is normally flat and rigid and needs to be positioned to be lit in a certain way. All this makes it hard to compete especially with computer-based art. I try to come up with a way for stained glass to fit into the modern lifestyle. I make and sell one-of-a-kind (OOAK) items that I would (and do) place into my house to make it more beautiful and whimsical.

Q: What is the most important about your work?

A: I get a lot of ideas and try to create basic sketches whenever I can. When I make time to work with glass, I pick out a sketch that matches my mood the most. My sketches are very basic and each has a little story associated with it. I let my sketches transform depending on the music I listen to as I work, the story I came up with and the glass that lends itself to the piece. Very often the panel evolves so much while I work, that it is hard to trace it to the original sketch. For me this evolution is the greatest part of the process because the finished product is not just a colorful pattern but becomes an illustration, a postcard, a mood snapshot.

Q: When I saw your new line of stained glass cottages, I instantly fell in love with them! Please tell us how did you come up with this idea?
A:
It was just one of the things that I thought could dress up a space. A bright and cute cottage evokes a happy, cozy, peaceful feeling. A cottage like that can be used to brighten up a kitchen or a nursery. A cottage plant stake will add a fun touch to your favorite flower pot.


My Halloween cottages are also a lot of fun. One of them is a sun catcher, it is a cottage with chicken feet. In Russian folklore, Baba Yaga - the bad witch, lives in such a cottage and uses it as a mode of transportation :)

My other Halloween cottage is actually a 3-dimentional candle lantern. It has been very popular. I made a series of these, each follow a theme but they are different and unique. I especially take pride in my works being OOAK.

Q: Do you take custom orders?
A:
Yes, I do. I have made a number of pieces for specific settings in specific houses.

Thank you so much, Alla, for your time and your story. We wish you a huge success and a lot of happy customers!


You can find these and also other Alla's work at her Etsy shop, FleetingStillness

Please visit today!


10 comments:

Arctida said...

Great interview, Tanya! I'm a big fun of Alla's work too!

Fine said...

Such a beautiful story!
Alla is very talented person!!!
Love it!

Sasha Tsyupka said...

I loooove Alla's artworks! Always look so gorgeous and unique! Good luck!

Vikulya said...

Such interesting interview!I love Alla's works!My congrats!

Katrinshine said...

I love her work! She is very talented!

GalaFilc said...

Nice workd os FleetingStillness

Tom Bjorn Designs said...

wonderful creations!!

Kathryn Dyche said...

Grat interview and beautiful work. My sister has done stained glass pieces so I know how much time and effort goes into a piece.

lightkeeping said...

Wonderful interview! I love the magic pieces that Alla creates from glass.

Aleksandra Roo said...

Love it, love the creations!!!
Beautiful person!

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