This week, we’ve been talking about Fire-Rated Safety Glass (see our related Monday and Wednesday posts), a necessary key to a passive fire protection system of building interiors. But art can gain inspiration from such necessary aspects of interior design as well. Firewall is an interactive media installation created by New York-based Artist Aaron Sherwood in collaboration with Mike Allison. A stretched sheet of spandex acts as a membrane interface sensitive to depth that people can push into and create fire-like visuals as well as expressively play music. (the website also features a testing video that is pretty neat.)

Gardner Glass Products, Inc. (the parent company of the Dreamwalls family of products) is a trusted supplier for SaftiFirst PYRAN Platinum F Fire-Rated Safety Glass. Fully UL certified, we are able to provide pieces for door lites, sidelites, transoms, and windows with fast turnaround. Call us at 1-800-334-7267 or learn more at http://gardnerglass.com/html/fireratedglass.html.

“Oh, sure, Mandy,….this glass is SO easy to clean. You tell us that all the time.”

Okay, well I’ll SHOW you. I took two samples of our Dreamwalls Color Glass. One in original glossy glass and one in our matte acid-etched finish. I marked them with a dry erase markers, a fat Sparco® permanent marker, and a thin Sharpie® marker,…then I added tomato sauce and popped them in the oven for a half hour. So these stains were dry and baked on. (this is also a testiment to our backing paint. It doesn’t crack, peel or flake after this heat exposure!) Then the samples sat around for another 2 weeks to make the dry erase makers ghost as much as possible.

How well do these tough stains come off? Watch the short homemade video below and you be the judge:

This short film from Ramon & Pedro was featured on the blog site No Film School, which is full of hints and tips for the amateur auteur. Any film called “The Mirror” is going to gain my attention, of course, and this one is done exceedingly well with the point of view and “reflection” matching magically.

As blogger Mar Bell of No Film School stated, “When crafting stories to immortalize on screen, filmmakers often reach for epic events; those formative experiences which are encompassed by phrases such as, ‘that was the Summer that changed my life’ or ‘after we met I knew things would never be the same again’. Yet we all know from experience that real life tends to slip by steadily, with these milestones padded out by the much more mundane aspects of existence. Using good old camera trickery to deliver a narrative,…Le Miroir captures a lifetime lived in the POV reflection of the bathroom cabinet.”

In the tradition of French filmmaking, it takes a bit of a sad dramatic turn, but ultimately the old man gives his reflection a shrug and turns out the light. I am left with a hopeful “c’est la vie” as the credits roll to Joe Strummer’s voice and you realize the main character was played by 3 generations of the same family. Nice!

Read the full post at No Film School, and to see some behind the scenes video on how they achieved such a convincing reflected illusion. Merci!

Recently at NeoCon 2012, The Glass Association of North America (GANA) was there investigating glass suppliers and decorative glass. I was honored to be interviewed by their Marketing guru, Brian Pitman, in this, the second episode podcast. It is completely unscripted and unrehearsed, as you’ll notice from my enthusiastic performance. Where on Earth did that ‘Mad Men’ reference come from?

Do you have a special graphic, logo, or pattern you want to try with either our selective silvering process, or with a two-color back-painted design? We’d love to take a look at it and help get your design on glass!

See below for a one-minute video summing up our company history and what our core vision is. When you realize we’ve been in business 50 years, synthesizing the history to a few seconds is a challenge.

Basically, what I’m trying to say, is that we’re a good company that puts beautiful, and extremely durable, coatings on glass to create amazing products for all the surfaces of your interior.

Dreamwalls Color Glass: New Possibilities is a new 5-minute video that showcases some of the installations and possibilities for using backpainted glass in interior applications. If features some of our latest projects and inspiration for using Dreamwalls Color Glass as white boards, tile, countertops, cabinet facing, and more. If you can’t view the video below, click HERE.

What do you think is the most exciting way you can use Dreamwalls Color Glass backpainted glass?

In this brief video, I show you some tips and tricks to hanging a framed mirror securely and easily. The video quality isn’t the best, but I hope it’s informative.

Main tips to remember:

1. Use picture hanging hooks that can handle the proper weight of your mirror
2. Hang mirrors directly from the d-rings
3. Never use picture hanging wire
4. And don’t be afraid to mark your walls to help you hang a mirror solo

Do you have a mirror hanging question you’d like for me to address? I’ve hung a LOT of them over the years and would love to help!

From time to time, people ask me what we do here at Dreamwalls. With this 1 minute spot, I try to explain.

So,…how’d I do?

During High Point Market this spring, I had the opportunity to finally join up with a live Interior Designer Chat “tweet up”. Barbara Segal is the creator and moderator of the weekly Twitter Chat, and I’ve learned a lot and met a lot of wonderful people through participating in @IntDesignerChat every Tuesday at 6pm. Going to a live event really was a great deal of fun and thanks to this wonderful video through The Antique & Design Center at Market Square – who graciously hosted the event – you’ll get to see me talk about a few of the things I like about Twitter Chats.