May 2023 was the month that Stained Glass windows made the news for different reasons. Heritage Crafts added Historic Stained Glass Window making to the the list of endangered crafts in Europe while in the U.S. a story about a church in Pennsylvania selling Tiffany Glass windows for an apple and an egg (as we Germans like to say), made the news cycle.
May was also the month my friends Chelsea, Alishia and I finished our Stained Glass Window Class at the Princeton Stained Glass studio of our friend Zach.
I always loved stained glass windows but hanging out in Zach’s studio once a month for five months and have him teach us how to create a little stained window has amplified my appreciation for the craft, actually art, even more. While we were working on our little windows, we witnessed how he and his crew restored certain church and synagogue windows and how they progressed over the course of those months. Walking trough the row of work benches and see the restoration of some very unique pieces come along was a definite highlight of each lesson.
Zach always took the time to tell us a little bit about the windows and the history as well as his process. His passion and knowledge for his craft and for his peers was so palatable, it put a spell on us, just like the view from his studio window.
It all started in February with choosing a motif for our so called cartoon. I went with a sketch I had made of the row houses where I live, Chelsea a graphic of her home and Alishia chose a sea horse and aquatic theme.
We mixed some glass powder and gum arabic to create black glass paint and traced our cartoon onto a piece of glass.
We made Zach demonstrate a Kewpie baby, which made us giggle for five months. Yes, I guess you can assume we have always been troublemakers as students ;) After we painted the motifs onto the glass pieces, they went into the kiln to be fired up and fusing the paint into the glass.
Meanwhile we could look at some of the cartoons, Zach has hanging in his studio. They are pieces of art in and itself and I wouldn’t mind hanging one in my studio.
In the second lesson we added a layer of black paint over our painting and then removed areas to highlight details of the paintings. Different tools like brushes, sticks etc., can be used to wipe and/or scratch paint away.
The glass pieces went right back into the kiln to fire a second time. Meanwhile we started picking out colored glass for the frame - not the easiest part if you have a million different glasses at your fingertip to choose from. This is just a little glimpse of the glass Zach has in the studio.
It was a candy store experience.
Glass cutting was the main part of the third lesson.
It was interesting to feel how different the glass plates reacted to cutting - note to self - rippled glass is really hard to cut especially for intricate small designs - maybe be less ambitious in the beginning LOL. Organization and numbering is definitely key here as well and we didn’t even have that many pieces.
For the fourth lesson we learned how to silver stain. This is the technique from which the “stained” in Stained Glass derived and nope it is not silver colored. The silver comes from the components used, like silver nitrate, which are mixed with binding materials and then applied over the area you want to stain. I think I got this right, if not “I am sorry, Mr. Zach, I must have cracked a bad joke while you were explaining it” ;)
The colors range seemingly endless between rusty brown oranges to bright yellows. Zach just picked one color for us as we were lost in decision making nirvana.
It was magic - into the kiln with a brown layer our pieces went, and when they came out, we washed the glass
and voila, bright yellow stained glasses appeared.
While the glass was fired up, we wrapped every single glass piece of our projects in copper foil.
The last and fifth lesson we finally put it all together.
We added flux onto the copper parts and then soldered the pieces together.
We wrapped the outside frame with lead came, soldered the joints, added some hooks and then aged the metal.
After a good scrub and lots of cleaning and drying, we each held our finished pieces in our hands.
Here are three insanely proud peeps. We had so much fun! Not only was Zach an amazing teacher, the four of us also had a good time spending quality time together.
We listened to lots of good music, ate a variety of yummy food and consumed some wine, celebrated a birthday and talked loads. I feel so spoiled having been able to have this experience and being around my super creative friends. Thank you so much Zach, for doing this with us, you are a rockstar!
Stained Glass windows in the U.S. were very popular during the Victorian Era and it became fashionable to have them not solely in houses of worship but in homes of the better to do or upper middle class. Those 100+ year old windows start sagging and bulging and need some TLC. The craft and art of Stained Glass Window making and restoration is in high demand and will be in even higher demand in the future as the lead starts failing due to age. Hopefully people will understand what treasures they have in their homes, how much work went into those windows and how special they are. There are a lot of masterpieces around, even made by some of the likes of Tiffany’s Studio or Belcher in some of the homes around Jersey City. The future of Stained Glass craft is shining bright if only more people could get to learning it as apprentices to skilled teachers like Zach and others.
It would be such a shame to loose this knowledge and the art of Stained Glass Window making forever.
Nat
Wonderful to read about this creative process, Nat! Thank you!