The chief objective of this small picture window is to provide privacy for the occupants of the guest powder room (situated embarrassingly exposed adjacent to the entry courtyard). This is achieved by using opaque glass towards the bottom of the panel while leaving the top of the panel open for a view of the Catalina Mountains. We introduce a sense of irony and rescue the project from the banal by means of several subtle devices: the use of abstract (non-realistic) amber for some of the prickly pears: the selection of interesting, hand-blown Bullseye glass for other pads: the overlaid prickly pear fruit (which purists will notice is technically difficult to fabricate) and the departure from the strictly figurative in the childlike, folk-art representation of the sun’s rays.
