2010 Detroit Conference Biographies
(in alphabetical order) - back to 2010 Conference Overview
Drew
Anderson
Conservation Discussion Panel (Sunday, July 25, a.m.)
Drew
Anderson, Conservator in the Sherman Fairchild Center for Objects
Conservation at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Drew received an M.A.
in Stained Glass Conservation from the Victoria & Albert
Museum,
and he served as senior conservator in the Stained Glass Conservation
Section of the V & A from 1996-2004. He previously held a
position
as Production Manager at Goddard & Gibbs Studios, Ltd. in
London.
He has served as a stained glass committee member of the Council for
the Care of Churches and Chairman of the ICON Stained Glass Section in
the UK. He is a member of the Conservation Committee of the
American Corpus Vitrearum.
Herb
Babcock
Modern Stained Glass in Detroit (Saturday, July 24, p.m.)
www.herbbabcock.com
Herb
Babcock is the Section Chair of the Glass Department at the College for
Creative Studies, Center of Art and Design in Detroit,
Michigan.
He has served as Chair or a Professor in this department since 1974.
Herb is also an accomplished sculptor working in mixed media with a
focus on glass. He has many public and private commissions to
his
credit and has exhibited extensively both in the US and
abroad.
Debra Balchen
Open Drawing Workshop (Thursday, July 22, evening)
Debra
Balchen is a Chicago area artist who specializes in painting,drawing,
sculpture and art glass. Raised in Chicago, she has also lived in South
Africa, Kenya and Egypt. She studied art at the Art Students League of
New York, the Kitengela Glass Studios in Kenya, the Studio at the
Corning Museum of Glass in New York, the Academy of Art University in
San Francisco and the Palette and Chisel and Vitruvian Fine Art
Studio in Chicago. You can see the windows she designed for the largest
church in Israel, The Church of the Sermon on the Mount, in the Spring
2010 issue of The Stained Glass Quarterly. Debra’s work can be
seen at www.debrabalchen.com
Gail
Bardhan
Reference
and Research Librarian
From Theophilus to Cappy Thompson: Stained Glass and The Corning Museum
of Glass Library (Saturday, July 24, a.m.)
Gail Bardhan has been a staff member of the Rakow Library since 1977. Prior to this, she was a reference librarian at Northwestern University, the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne (England), and the North Suburban Library System (Illinois). At the Rakow Library, Bardhan has held a variety of positions: acquisitions coordinator, audiovisual collections librarian (under her supervision, the film and video collection grew from 80 titles to 1,800), and cataloger. She has been a reference librarian since 1998. Her special research areas include the Carder-Steuben archives, the Chambon collection, stained glass, pressed glass, the history of individual firms, Steuben Glass, and the varied collections of images and trade catalogs. She has given presentations on the Library collections to the Glass Art Society, at the Annual Seminar of The Corning Museum of Glass, and at Carder Symposiums. In addition, she was editor of a two-volume set of bibliographies of periodical articles previously published in individual issues of The Journal of Glass Studies. Bardhan holds a bachelor’s degree in French from Denison University, and a master's degree in library science from the University of Illinois.
Sarah
Brown
Author
and Art Historian
A Prophet without Honour?
Ervin Bossanyi (1891-1975) and Post War Stained
Glass
(Sunday, July 25, a.m.)
Conservation Discussion Panel (Sunday, July 25, a.m.)
Sarah
Brown is a well-known author of books and articles on stained glass
history and conservation. She is currently Director of the York
Glaziers Trust, a role that she combines with that of lecturer in the
History of Art at the University of York, where she directs the MA
programme in stained glass conservation. She is chairman of the Corpus
Vitrearum Medii Aevi for Great Britain, a fellow of the Society of
Antiquaries of London, a fellow of the Royal Historical Society, the
Royal Society of Art and an Honorary Fellow of the British Society of
Master Glass-Painters.
Art
Femenella
Tiffany at Beecher House (Friday, July 23, a.m.)
Conservation Discussion Panel, Moderator (Sunday, July 25, a.m.)
For 35 years, Art Femenella has been committed to
excellence in the
field of historic window restoration. During this time he has worked on
and been responsible for the restoration of thousands of windows,
doors, panels and artifacts. Mr. Femenella is a veteran of the Viet Nam
War serving from 6/69 to 6/71 as a military policeman with a top
security clearance. His formal education is in the sciences, majoring
in physics at City College of New York. After 110 credit-hours of study
Art left to follow a career in stained glass.
Mr. Femenella started in stained glass in 1968 as a craftsman, serving his apprenticeship at the Greenland Studio in New York. In 1981, he became the co-owner and vice-president of this prestigious restoration studio. In 1988, Art sold his interest in the Greenland Studio to open his own consulting firm as well as become vice-president and co-owner of the Jack Cushen Studio, also of New York. Both studios gained national recognition for excellence in the field of stained glass conservation & restoration. In 1993, Mr. Femenella consolidated his efforts and formed Femenella & Associates, Inc. the present firm.
Art divides his time between supervising major restoration projects, consulting, lecturing and writing for numerous national magazines. His projects have included works by Louis Comfort Tiffany, John La Farge, Frank Lloyd Wright, Maitland Armstrong and other artists of equal importance. Art enjoys solving difficult problems, especially when the objective is to restore beauty and grace to a work of art that has been ravaged by time and the elements. Art's practical experience, science background, and creative problem-solving abilities make him unique in the field.
Mr. Femenella has written over forty articles on stained glass restoration. He is a past Board member and the Chair of the Restoration Committee of the Stained Glass Association of America; and sits on the Board of Governors and the Restoration Committee of the Census of Stained Glass Windows in America. He is a member of the Association for Preservation Technology, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the American Institute for Conservation of Historic Works, the United Kingdom Institute for Conservation of Historic Works, The British Society of Master Glass Painters and numerous other preservation groups. Art was the consultant to the Protective Glazing Task Force. This was a group of architects, engineers and preservationists charged by the Department of the Interior to develop national guidelines for the fabrication and installation of protective glazing. Mr. Femenella lectures and teaches seminars on restoration across the country.
Contact Details:
Femenella & Associates Inc.
10 County Line Road, Suite 24
Branchburg, NJ 08876
Tel: 908-722-6526
E-mail: ajf@femenellaassociates.com
Website: www.femenellaassociates.com
Rebecca
Hartman-Baker
Stained Glass Road Scholars: Lucy and Ethel Do the Northeast
(Saturday July 24, a.m.)
My mother, from South Carolina, and my father, from upstate New York, met when both were in the Air Force. I was born in California, but grew up in South and North Carolina. Except for two years in Endicott, New York, I have lived in eastern Tennessee for the last 35 years. I am a late-bloomer. I graduated from college with a Bachelor’s of Science in Mechanical Engineering twelve years after high school. I had my two sons after I started working as an engineer. And I found that glass was what I wanted to do after I worked as an engineer for 20 years. I enjoyed working as an engineer and thought I would work as an engineer until I retired, but as industry left my part of the country and I faced another lay-off, I decided to open a stained glass shop. I am a small, one-person retailer and I enjoy every minute of it. I enjoy teaching, I enjoy learning, and I am still learning daily. I also do a few commissions and I especially like to do repairs.
Contact information:Rebecca Hartman-Baker
Kingsport Stained Glass
218 E. Market Street
Kingsport, TN 37660
Mary
Clerkin Higgins
La Farge "Helping Angel" window at Detroit Institute of Arts
(Friday, July 23, a.m.)
Mary Clerkin Higgins has worked in stained glass since 1976. She owns and operates Clerkin Higgins Stained Glass in New York City. Her original designs are in private collections, ecclesiastical settings, and homes. Her work has been included in glass exhibitions in the United States and Canada and has been featured in The New York Sun, Glass Art Magazine and other publications. She has worked with the artist Rowan LeCompte on various projects, including fabricating two of his clerestory windows for the National Cathedral of Saint Peter and Saint Paul in Washington, D.C. and realizing his sketch for a window in North Carolina.
She is also a highly respected stained-glass conservator and has worked on Medieval and Renaissance glass for many museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and The Cloisters, The Detroit Institute of Arts, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and the St. Louis Art Museum, among others. She has conserved works by modern masters, including: Sir Edward Burne-Jones, Marc Chagall, Harry Clarke, John La Farge, Henri Matisse, William Morris, Robert Sowers, Louis Comfort Tiffany, Christopher Wilmarth, and Frank Lloyd Wright. She has written and lectured on stained glass conservation and contributed the chapter “Origins, Materials, and the Glazier’s Art” to Virginia Raguin’s book, Stained Glass: From Its Origins to the Present (Abrams 2003).
She can be contacted at www.clerkinhigginsstainedglass.com .
Judy Killian
Stained Glass Road Scholars: Lucy and Ethel Do the Northeast
(Saturday July 24, a.m.)
Judy
(Buhlert) Killian grew up exploring marine biology and art in So.
California. She had several wonderful art teachers along the way. In
1983, she moved to Alaska to drive a tour bus in Denali National Park,
help build a cabin, and years later met her husband. They raised four
children, and are now grandparents in a very small rural Alaskan
community.
In the 1980's her art was done in dry media because there was no
power or water in the area. The 1990's saw many of her watercolor and
oil paintings go home with globetrotting tourists from her "Local Color
Art Studio". The new millennium brought a passion to create more
permanent artwork.
The dark of winter influenced a need to
create with light itself, give it a place to play freely, rather that
translate to paper how it acts on God's creation. That began an amazing
journey into the chemistry and wonderful world of glass. She
confidently enjoys fusing and is exploring painting on glass now, but
sees no end to learning. Sharing with others online seeking to learn
this medium is very important to her, especially since that is where
she has found so many of the great teachers, who are now dear friends,
who have helped her along her journey.
See her work at www.judykillian-artist.com
Tom
Krepcio
Photo Transfer Workshop (Friday, July 23, all day)
Photoshop & Stained Glass Design, Discussion Panel, Moderator
(Sunday, July 25, p.m.)
Tom
Krepcio began working with stained glass in 1971, starting as a
hobbyist at the age of 11. He has been a stained glass professional
since 1980. In his work with a variety of stained glass studios, Tom
has designed, fabricated or restored hundreds of stained glass panels.
He has displayed his own work at prestigious venues such as the
Smithsonian Craft Fair, demonstrated at the Glass Art Society
Conference, and exhibited widely. In 1987, Krepcio won the Best of Show
- Judges Award and Highest Technical Excellence at the SGAA "Open
International Competition & Exhibition" at The Corning Museum
of
Glass, Corning, NY. Tom is a pioneer in the use of computer technology
for designing and fabricating stained glass, incorporating computer
related technology starting in 1992. Since 2003, Tom has written for his blog,
called Vitreosity, devoted solely to the topic of stained glass in all
its manifestations. It can be found at www.krepcio.com/vitreosity
Tom can be contacted through his website - www.krepcio.com
Barbara
Krueger
Michigan Women in Stained Glass (Saturday, July 24, p.m.)
A
native Californian, Barbara Krueger lives in Michigan and has been
involved in several aspects of stained glass for over 25 years. A
former elementary school teacher, she was on the art fair circuit
selling her original stained glass pieces before returning to college
to get an art degree. After 2 years in the art program of Eastern
Michigan University in Ypsilanti, MI that included many art history
classes, serendipitously she took a class that was an introduction to
historic preservation, switched her major and finally in 1995 graduated
with a MS in historic preservation.
A 20+ year member of the
Stained Glass Association of America, she was on the Board of Directors
in several positions, chaired the 1992 Chicago conference, was
co-editor of The SGAA Reference and Technical Manual and even had a
short stint as the Executive Administrator. For 12 years she has been a
Research Assistant (that means volunteer) with the Michigan Stained
Glass Census organized under the auspices of Michigan State University
Museum; there are now over 1200 buildings, mostly churches, that have
registered their stained glass windows.
http://www.museum.msu.edu/museum/msgc/
For several years Barbara
has been making condition reports for Michigan churches that are in
need of impartial information about the condition of their stained
glass windows. In addition, she has lectured at many statewide
gatherings on “The Art and Architecture of Stained
Glass”
utilize her own photos from Europe as well as interesting situations
from around the US and Michigan.
Barbara is now volunteering in
the statewide program “New Dollars/New Partners for Sacred
Places” sponsored by Partner for Sacred Places in
Philadelphia
and Michigan Historic Preservation Network.
She is also partnering with several people on a book about historic
Detroit churches, which will be published by Wayne State University
Press in the fall of 2011.
J.
Kenneth Leap
Silver Stain Workshop (Thursday, July 22, a.m.)
Open Drawing Workshop (Thursday, July 22, evening)
Photoshop & Stained Glass Design, Discussion Panel (Sunday, July 25, p.m.)
Born in Camden, NJ, J. Kenneth Leap painted and exhibited watercolors in his teens before entering the Rhode Island School of Design. A trip to Germany sparked his interest in glass painting, a medieval technique that would form the basis for his future professional work. Now, 22 years after opening his studio, The Painted Window, J. Kenneth Leap is primarily recognized for his achievements in the field of architectural stained glass. His public artworks include a skylight illustrating the history of NJ in the Annex of the NJ Statehouse, "The Atlantic Globe" for the lobby of Historic Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, NJ and major installations at the Veteran's Memorial Home in Vineland, NJ. In 1994 Leap was invited to relocate his studio, and become an artist-in-residence at the Wheaton Arts & Cultural Center, in Millville, NJ. Leap has taught workshops and performed demos in traditional Glass Painting techniques at the Rhode Island School of Design, Tyler School of Art, and at the Glass Art Society annual conference. For more information visit the website www.jkennethleap.com.
Rowan LeCompte
Recipient - Joseph Barnes Lifetime Acheivement Award
First commissioned for a window for the Washington National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. when he was 16, Rowan LeCompte has spent almost 70 years studying, drawing and creating architectural stained glass and mosaics for a multitude of locations. Rowan is best known for 45 stained glass windows and six mosaic murals in the Washington Cathedral. His work also illuminates some 50 other American churches and public buildings, including Episcopal cathedrals in Maryland and Wyoming, the chapels of Trinity College and Princeton University, and the New York State Capitol at Albany. He continues to design and paint in his studio in Virginia.
Dan Maher
Photo Transfer Workshop (Thursday, July 22, all day)
Daniel Maher is a stained glass artist who works and lives in Somerville, Massachusetts. A former employee of both the Connick and Lyn Hovey Studios, Dan started his own business in January of 1989 so he could further explore a variety of design styles in stained glass. The studio also restores historically significant windows, ranging from multiple-layer opalescent to Gothic Revival.
His work can be seen at his studio website -
http://www.dmstainedglass.com/
Hallie Monroe
Tour de France, French Stained Glass - with David Wilde
(Saturday, July 24, p.m.)
Hallie
Monroe is a 2nd generation artist and so was encouraged to take many
classes in art. She apprenticed two years in a small stained slass
studio in NJ when in high school. After receiving a BFA from Pratt
Institute (Illustration), she was eventually employed at Steuben Glass,
where her interests returned to glass. For 22 years she has been the
sole proprietor of a stained glass studio in Southampton, New York.
A
major percentage of her work consists of leaded glass windows in old
homes and public buildings in the historic areas surrounding
Southampton. She has worked on notable local landmarks including Rogers
Memorial Library, Southampton Hospital Parrish building, The First
Presbyterian Church, and Sag Harbor Elementary School. An ongoing
project is working on restoration of the 1893 painted windows of
Southampton United Methodist church.
Hallie Monroe has received
numerous scholarships applied to studying with stained glass artists
such as Dick Millard, Nick Parrendo, Debora Coombs, J. Kenneth Leap and
Kathy Jordan. Most recently, the Elskus scholarship gave
her a wonderful opportunity to see the stained glass of Southern
France, accompanied by David Wilde, observing stained glass windows
from the 12th century to the present time. It was an amazing experience
that she looks forward to sharing through photographs and stories at
the Detroit conference.
Rona Moody
Scottish Stained Glass: 100 years of creativity, from 1870 to 1970
(Sunday, July 25, p.m.)
Rona Moody is a stained glass designer, maker and teacher from Scotland who currently lives in Pittsburgh, PA. She studied Fine Art at Edinburgh University, where she specialized in the history of stained glass. As part of her studies, she produced some of the earliest research on 20th century Scottish stained glass artists. She then spent some time as an assistant to Lawrence Lee in his studio in Kent, before moving to the stained glass restoration department of Salisbury Cathedral. She spent many years working principally as a community arts worker while keeping up her interest in all aspects of stained glass. For the last ten years she has made her own windows for domestic and sacred buildings, written articles and pamphlets on stained glass, lectured and taught for many colleges and further education institutions. Her work has been published in the Journal of the British Society of Master Glass Painters Rona is a committee member of the Scottish Stained Glass Symposium, for which she is North American Representative.
Karen Mulder
Shifting the Sands of Time: Educating Art History about Stained Glass
(Sunday, July 25, p.m.)
Art and architectural historian Karen Mulder currently teaches about glass history and architecture in the graduate programs of the Corcoran School of Art + Design in Washington, DC. After studies at Yale and the University of Virginia, she received her Ph.D. with the first doctoral dissertation written on the postwar German glass designers, and has spoken or published on architectonic glass or contemporary art for American Arts Quarterly, Material Religions, Image Journal, the Society of Architectural Historians, Glass Art Society, SGAA, and for the second time, the AGG. She is currently assisting in the preparation of a multidisciplinary Canadian exhibit, "U: Rediscovering the Human Spirit," and will publish this year in several artists' monographs, including Sarah Hall's new book from Peters.
KAREN L. MULDER, Ph.D.
Art & Architectural History
klmulder-at-mindspring.com
Faculty, Academic Studies and Art History
Masters Programs in History of Decorative Arts, Interior Design, Art of the Book
Corcoran College of Art + Design
Washington, D.C.
Scott Ouderkirk
How to Get Value from Self-Promotional Commissions
(Saturday, July 24, p.m.)
Scott Ouderkirk is an artist, author, and craftsman who teaches and
lives in Addison, NY. He spends summers on the St. Lawrence River in
Hammond, NY or captaining his 1964 wooden boat, Pen & Ink. His art
is created using both pen and ink, and stained glass using the
traditional method of painting and firing to add images. He takes pride
in his work, his family and whatever project he has going, currently a
1962 VW Bug. Scott’s formal education was completed with an MFA in
illustration from the University of Hartford.
His books include
Fallen Heroes, Sunday Drive, The Adirondack Run, Island Images, Barns,
The Amish Secret and Wood, Waves and Wispy Smoke. He was published in
WoodenBoat, January 2004 and was asked to write and illustrate the
feature article for The Antique Boat Museum's The Gazette Annual 2004.
You can discover more at www.scottouderkirk.com.
Nicholas Parrendo
Traditional Painting Workshop (Thursday, July 22, p.m.)
Nicholas
Parrendo has spent his entire career, from employee to owner at Hunt
Stained Glass Studios. Hired by George Hunt in 1950, he apprenticed
under the supervision of artists Helen Carew Hickman and Charles
Morris. Creating, sketching, drawing, presenting and executing artistic
jeweled inspirations of vivid color gracing churches, synagogues,
hospitals, restaurants, universities, businesses and residences across
the country. His esteemed service to the art and craft of stained glass
is evident in the many endeavors he has undertaken throughout his 60
year career.
Jon Rarick
Reusche Paints with Technical Information (Sunday, July 25, p.m.)
Mr.
Rarick owns and operates Trans World Supplies, Inc. (dba: Reusche &
Company) which is a manufacturing facility for high temperature
inorganic pigments for glass and porcelain. These products are used on
container glass, cosmetic glass, architectural glass, stained glass,
scientific glass ware, thick film ceramic casting for electronic
components, automotive glass conductive silver pastes, dinner and table
ware, decorative tile industry, add specialty and promotional products.
These products are sold globally. The plant is located in Greeley
Colorado.
The Reusche website is at http://www.reuscheco.com/
Virginia Raguin
Kiki Smith: Lodestar New York: The Pace Gallery (Saturday, July 24, p.m.) 
Virginia Chieffo Raguin, Ph.D. Yale
University, is professor of Art History at the College of the Holy
Cross. She has published widely on stained glass and architecture
including Stained Glass from its Origins to the Present with Abrams
(USA) and Thames and Hudson (GB) in 2003. A member of the International
Corpus Vitrearum, she has co-authored Stained Glass before 1700 in the
Midwest United States (Harvey Miller Press, London, 2002). Her museum
exhibits have included Glory in Glass: Stained Glass in the United
States: Origin, Variety and Preservation 1998-99, and Reflections on
Glass: 20th Century Stained Glass in American Art and Architecture,
2002-03, at the Gallery at the American Bible Society, and, most
recently Pilgrimage and Faith: Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam a
traveling exhibition to appear in Worcester, Chicago, Richmond, and The
Rubin Museum of Art, New York from 2010 through 2011.
Patrick Reyntiens
Story of the Cochem Commission (Saturday, July 24, p.m.)
Patrick will be speaking on the Cochem, Germany commission that was featured in the first issue of AGGnews.
Patrick Reyntiens has been associated with stained glass since 1951 after studying at the Edinburgh College of Art. He was recognized as the leading modern stained glass artist in the UK and back in 1976 was awarded the Order of the British Empire for his service to the arts.
Reyntiens has a large number of special commissions, in the US, the UK, Ireland and Europe and has lectured widely. His work with John Piper brought much attention to the successful collaboration between two major artists. He is still working to commission and privately with his son John Reyntiens.
You can see his work on his website www.patrickreyntiens.com/
Judith Schaechter
Photoshop & Stained Glass Design Panel (Sunday, July 25, p.m.)
Judith
Schaechter has lived and worked in Philadelphia since graduating in
1983 from the Rhode Island School of Design Glass Program. She has
exhibited widely, including in New York, Los Angeles and Philadelphia.
She is the recipient of many grants, including the Guggenheim
Fellowship, two National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships in Crafts ,
The Louis Comfort Tiffany Award, The Joan Mitchell Award, two
Pennsylvania Council on the Arts awards, The Pew Fellowship in the Arts
and a Leeway Foundation grant. Her work is in the collection of the
Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Philadelphia Museum of Art,
The Corning Museum of Glass, The Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian
Institution and numerous other collections. Judith has taught at The
Pilchuck Glass School in Seattle, Rhode Island School of Design, The
Pennsylvania Academy and at The University of the Arts. Judith's work
was included in the 2002 Whitney Biennial.
web - http://www.judithschaechter.co
blog - http://judithschaechterglass.blogspot.com/
Jim Tottis
Adjunct Instructor, Wayne State University (Friday, July 22, a.m.)
Jim
is an independent curator and former member of the curatorial staff in
the Department of American Art, at the Detroit Institute of Arts where
he was responsible for one of the leading collections of American art
encompassing late 17th, 18th, 19th and early 20th century painting,
sculpture, furniture, and decorative arts. He also held the
position of Adjunct Professor in the Humanities Department at Wayne
State University since 1991.
He has contributed to
numerous publications, most recently, The Guardian Building: Cathedral
of Finance, Collecting American Decorative Arts 1985-2005, American
Paintings in the Detroit Institute of Arts vol. III, An Exhibition at
the Residence of the U.S. Ambassador Bratislava, Slovak Republic, and
From the Hudson River School to Impressionism: American Paintings
from the Manoogian Collection.
Some of the more recent
exhibitions and projects he has been involved with include, as
organizing curator, Life’s Pleasures: The Ashcan Artists’
Brush with Leisure, a traveling exhibition, consisting of nearly 80
paintings and accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue that focuses
on the Ashcan painters’ depiction of leisure activities. He
was the coordinating curator at the DIA for American Attitude: Whistler
and His Followers, the first exhibition to examine James Abbott McNeil
Whistlers’ influence on American painters. In 2002, he
organized American Beauty: Paintings and Sculpture from the Detroit
Institute of Arts 1770 - 1920, a multi-venue exhibition comprised of
the treasures that form the core of the museum’s renounced
American art collection, which traveled to six European and American
sites. As project director for the publication American Paintings
in the Detroit Institute of Arts, volume III, he wrote the introduction
as well as several entries, secured funding for the $150,000 project,
hired of authors, and coordinated photography and conservation of those
pieces represent in the book. Building Detroit: 150 Years of
Architecture and Innovation, was an exhibition he organized that served
as part of the DIA’s celebration of Detroit’s tercentenary,
which explored fifty of the city’s most celebrated and
influential structures along with their architects. The impacts
of those works on the field of American architecture as well as the
cultural fabric of Detroit were examined in the context of the
area’s financial successes and failures. In 1989 he was the
project coordinator of the restoration and installation of the
DIA’s three monumental windows, by John La Farge, The Helping
Angle, Faith and Hope and Write Me as One Who Loves His Fellow Man,
designed and fabricated in 1889 for the First Unitarian Church in
Detroit.
David Wilde
Tour de France, French Stained Glass, with Hallie Monroe
(Saturday, July 24, p.m.)
Who
is David Wilde? David Wilde is a self-taught architectural glass
artist. Well, not really, his first exposure to contemporary
glass was at a weeklong course with Robert Jekyll as the teacher. Wilde
decided then and there, to make windows. Over the early to mid
1980’s, Wilde studied with Jochem Poensgen, Johannes Schreiter,
Narcissus Quagliatta, Dick Millard, and even two French artists,
Jean-Dominique Fleury, and Gilles Rousvoal in Chartres in 1990.
Wilde
has written many articles about the things he sees and things he thinks
about. Some of his writings have appeared in Stained Glass
Quarterly of the SGAA. These writings are based on a series of
very focused trips to Europe, especially to France, which figures
prominently in his researches because of its wonderful history of
glass. France is the ideal place to carry on the tradition
without being restricted to traditional designs. The Government of
France, through various agencies, has made featuring new glass in its
historic buildings a priority. Participating artists might have
no experience in stained glass, so they are paired with well-known
studios, whose artist/owners share their knowledge, and together they
bring some very exciting projects to life. And so, David Wilde has
become the messenger for these undiscovered artists and some amazing
developments in glass that are often unknown outside of France. Until
now.
Along with an inquiring mind, Wilde reads a lot.
There are reasons why the French are interested in their culture. And
there have been growing problems as the Government reaches out and then
subsequently abandons various sites, confusing the locals. Wilde finds
that reading about French culture and French politics, even back to the
French Revolution, helps to put everything into some kind of
perspective. Through his writings and his convention speeches
Wilde presents what is right about French stained glass, what has gone
wrong, and why. What do other Europeans think of the French glass
of the last 25 years? What does America know about these artists,
or let me ask, “Do you even care?” I think we should
all know what’s going on over “there”, and see how we
can respond to their successes, their excesses, and their
failings. David Wilde is here to start a different kind of
dialogue and to encourage those among you who describe yourselves as
artists to take a peek into the French situation and see how it might
be of some use to you.
Albert Young
Glassblowing Workshop (Thursday, July 22, p.m.)
Albert
Young has been a respected glass artist and teacher in Michigan for
nearly twenty years. The studio and classes at Michigan Hot Glass
reflect both Mr. Young's knowledge of studio operation and commitment
to education. It is the mission of MHGW that our students have
both the finest studio and the best instruction available in pursuing
their quest to blow glass.
The website for
Michigan Hot Glass workshop is http://www.michiganhotglass.com/
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