It’s a long story, about 3,000 miles long, how my studio came to be filled with beautiful antique French, German and English stained glass. And these crosses are just the latest turn in the road.
Three Crosses
Fused Antique Stained Glass, 2.5″w x 4″h
(16/30in30) $30 each, available in November through the Johnson Center for the Arts
My mother made stained glass panels and windows. She was good at what she did, and took care to use only the best materials. She used lead channel, not copper foil. She bought huge sheets of glass from Bendheim Glass in New York City, and all her glass moved with us wherever and whenever we moved: first from Connecticut to Pennsylvania, then to California in the order of Santa Barbara to San Francisco to Sausalito.
In 1989 she was diagnosed with ALS and her hands were the first to go. She called me and asked me if I would be interested in “some glass,” as I understood it. I told her I’d choose a few pieces during my next visit. She replied, “No – it’s all or nothing.” So, not being sure what she meant by that, I placed my bet on “all.”
About 6 months later a tractor trailer moving van inched backward down the alley to my garage studio. Out came more than a hundred boxes with one or two sheets of glass in them. Out came cabinets, tables, bins and barrels. OK, so there weren’t any barrels, but you get the idea – a full-on semi’s worth of stuff: from the fixtures on the ceiling to the rug on the floor and everything in between. It was her ENTIRE studio. (to be continued)
Art Time Studios 
Your mom was really something; you are a chip off the block. How fantastic that you get to work with her legacy – it sounds like it could last you a lifetime! These are really cool. I’m sure your mom is glowing with pride somewhere in the hereafter. xoxo
It’ll last be a lifetime because it’s KILLING me! I mean, I am making 100 of them and they are technically challenging.
Thanks, Marion, you are one of my few friends who actually met her…so you know what I’m talking about.