About Us
About Us
We are an inclusive organization that actively seeks the participation of all people with an interest in stained, leaded and decorative glass and its preservation and restoration.
Our Mission
Our intention is to support and provide speakers for public lectures and seminars, encourage spirited debates, initiate fact-based research, and work towards building an environment within the craft that both cultivates novices and facilitates experienced craftsmen and artists to attain a higher level of expertise.
Our plan is to create partnerships with existing non-profit organizations that cherish these same ideals. We encourage such organizations to contact us.
Our Bylaws
Please click on this link to read our bylaws.
Our Current Corporate Structure
The American Glass Guild Incorporated is a not-for-profit corporation registered in the State of New Jersey and has federal tax exempt status under the IRS code as a 501(c)3 organization.
American Glass Guild Directors
The following individuals are the Directors of the American Glass Guild.
Sister Diane Couture, Joan Di Stefano, Arthur Femenella, Rebecca Hartman-Baker, Mary Clerkin Higgins, Kathy Jordan, Tom Krepcio, Barbara Krueger, Marie Foucault, Maria Serpentino, and J. Kenneth Leap. Click on a name to learn more about each of these extraordinary individuals.
Sister Diane Couture, S.S.J.
Sister
Diane Couture is not only a Sister of St. Joseph of St. Augustine,
Florida but is a world renowned Glass painter. She has restored and
created Cut glass and painted windows for Churches all over the world.
Sister Diane has extensive workshop experience., speaking in colleges,
churches, businesses and art associations all over the United States
and the Caribbean speaking on the topic of “The spiritual
Dynamics of
Stained Glass” and our call to use our gifts.
Sister Diane is most noted for her creation of the stained glass window for the 911 Memorial in New York City.
Sister’s studio was also part of the recovery team for the churches and buildings in Bay St. Louis and Biloxi Mississippi in the after math of Hurricane Katrina.
She obtained most of her Art studies from The Arrowmont School of Art in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. She also had the privilege of studying glass painting under a German Glass painter for three years wherein she obtained her certificate as a Master Glass Painter.
Since that time Sister Diane Couture has had her works published in many magazines, news papers and television broadcasts. Sister Diane won the Presidents Art of achievement award as well as having appeared on Good morning America and the Today show in New York City. She has also been published in Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in American Women and Who’s Who in the World from 2002 to 2009.
Sister Diane Couture also coordinated and spear headed the four year Degree program in Stained Glass at Flagler College in St. Augustine. Florida. This program awarded a four year degree with a Major in Art Design and a Minor in Stained Glass.
Sister Diane teaches classes at her studio as well as at The First Coast technological Institute. She also operates a full service State of the Art Stained Glass Studio in St. Augustine, Florida where she and four other glass artists restore and create stained glass art for churches around the world.
Rebecca Hartman-Baker
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
423-343-0234
nebaker@earthlink.net
Arthur Femenella
Arthur J. Femenella, President and Chief Consultant, Femenella & Associates, Inc.
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
Mary Clerkin
Higgins
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 .
Kathy Jordan
Kathy has been working professionally in stained glass since 1987, owning and operating her studio, The Art of Glass, Inc., in Media, Pennsylvania. The primary focus and concentration of work at her studio is in the field of conservation & restoration. Kathy specializes in historic paint replication and the studio also fabricates new work for independent glass designers. She has devoted the past fifteen years to the study of vitreous glass painting and china painting and currently teaches workshops with Ken Leap at Wheaton Arts & cultural Center in Millville, NJ.
Tom Krepcio
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 a blog called Vitreosity, devoted solely to the topic of stained glass in all its manifestations.
Tom can be contacted through his website - http://www.krepcio.com
Barbara Krueger
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 2009.
Marie Foucault
ENSAAMA Paris, France: 1976 to 1979 at the National
Superior School
of Arts and Crafts Applied to the Industry Training: Part
time at
school for continuing education and placed at the Parisian Boutzen
Studio by the school for practicing.Then at Mauret Studio, in-charged
of the conservation of two 13th century lancets from the cathedral of
Bourges. Andrieux Studio in Paris etc... 984 moved to the
United
States of America, Gilsoul and Partners, Greenland Studio.1989 on...
Conservator in Private Practice and Consultant for the Corpus Medii
Aevi (Inventory and charting of prior 17th C. stained glass collection
for The Metropolitan Museum of New York, the Philadelphia Museum of
Art, the Duomo of Pisa (Italy), etc...) Conservation of the
stained glass collection of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum of
Boston MA ...
And a lot of other projects....
Open Vision:
1995
on... Jumping from the platform into the abyss of a new world moving to
a cattle ranch in the middle of nowhere in Colorado and being the last
one to enter a fabulous group of women glass artists and globe trotters
from all over the world called "Women International Stained Glass
Workshop".
My brushes, my grisailles, my diamond cutter and the light of a
fabulous
invention: Glass - an incredible trip through life.
Maria Serpentino
Maria Serpentino is the Conference Committee Chairperson for the American Glass Guild. Maria received her Bachelor of Science degree, with distinction, from Babson College in 1978. She majored in Business Management and Organizational Behavior. Maria grew up with a stained glass studio on the ground level of her house, as her father, Joseph, started Serpentino Stained Glass in 1968. Joseph had apprenticed with Maria’s uncle Napoleon Setti and then managed the stained glass department of Whittemore Associates before forming his sole proprietorship. In 1976, Joseph, with Maria’s help, purchased the Whittemore stained glass studio, keeping the Serpentino name. In 1979, Serpentino Stained Glass was incorporated, and Maria became its CEO. Today, Maria, her husband, Roberto Rosa and their business partner Domenico Iriti, are the principals of Serpentino Stained Glass, Inc. (www.serpentinostainedglass.com).
Maria can be contacted at: Maria@SerpentinoStainedGlass.com.
Joan C. Di Stefano
Di Stefano Ruiz Studio
I
am a native of California who has maintained a working studio since
1978. I have a M.A. from New York University and a BFA in
Painting from the San Francisco Art Institute, with additional
education from Pilchuck and SF State U. in glassblowing.
Since
1992 I have also worked in the medium of mosaics, attending classes in
Ravenna, Italy. My glass work runs the gamut from new design
and
fabrication to conservation. I also work 3-dimensionally in
glass
and mixed media.
My mixed-media paintings, photography, and
glass have been exhibited in Venice, Brescia, and Bologna, Italy;
Tepic, Mexico; and Paris, France. Currently I have been
restoring
historic stained-glass windows at the Abbey of Gethsemane in
Kentucky. In early 2009 I completed a two-year restoration
project on stained-glass windows originally from St. Francis de Sales
Cathedral in Oakland, California – one of the casualties of
the 1989
Loma Prieta Earthquake. They are now installed in a new
church in
Pensacola, Florida – St. Paul Catholic Church. In
addition to
the
restored windows I made several new ones and new mosaics for the walls,
tabernacle, and altar, 38 in total. The tabernacle angel
heads
were cast in glass by Patricia O’Doherty of Moon Mountain
Studios.
My
personal life consists of working at art, going to movies, drinking
Irish coffee and buying art books. I have one son, Steve, who
spent his youth riding around the country holding on for dear life
behind me on a Shovel-head Harley Davidson. P.s. As
for the
studio name, Ruiz is long gone, but why hassle changing the logo.
J. Kenneth Leap
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.
