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Design ideas for St. Catharine of Siena

(Originally posted in 2008 and bumped up for reconsideration and additional design discussion with client.)

We've been away working on some church murals at another church, but had a break to moodle some more designs for the clerestory windows at St. Catharine of Siena. Here are variations and ideas:




All are in the $2,000/each range x eight windows, except for the most simple bottom window which is less.
Cost is determined by various factors, including the number of pieces of glass in the window, the particular glass chosen, whether glass-painting is involved, and the materials market in general.

Because glass and metal are selling at all-time highs right now, quotes we send out to clients are only good for three months. The stained glass industry is very labor and energy-intensive, not only because they require huge inputs of energy to manufacture, but also because they are not common commodities, often being imported from overseas. Many art glasses, for example, are manufactured in Europe. High oil costs immediately drive the cost of shipping up, and thus the cost of glass. This is above and beyond the intensive energy useage required to run the glass furnaces and manufacture the glass to begin with. The lead came cost is also being driven by scarcity of metals, so this is another factor to consider.

Below are suggested designs for windows in the choir portion of the church, four total which will each have a different symbol for the four evangelists. This one is for St. Luke. Here are two possibilities, and at bottom left the beginnings of a third:


These larger windows will cost from $3,000 - $4,000 each.

If symbols of the four evangelists aren't what the church would like, another option would be full-figure depictions of the saints. These, of course, would cost a bit more.

Choices

The robe was first a lovely swirling blue.

But upon further consideration, the artist noticed that the window directly across from this one had a lot more red, creating a color imbalance in the overall effect of the church when viewed from afar.

So the glass was replaced with a red robe for better balance.

Painting with glass

Though many of the glass pieces are painted, the choice of this American-developed opalescent art glass also lends a painterly effect. You can see in these robes, the swirls of color in the glass, chosen just so they give the impression of drapery and shadow.

Quite a bit of glass is cut and rejected before the exact right piece is chosen.

The sky colors, too. are chosen carefully for just the right mood and impact.

It's a very time-consuming process, but worth the end result.

Step-by-step: working with lead

What holds all the glass pieces together in a stained glass window is extruded lead came, which is available in various sizes. Lead is a very soft metal, and to strengthen it, each came is placed in a lead vice like this, and then slightly stretched to harden it. This process is called "tempering" in the metal trades.

Here the artist pulls back on the lead, while bracing himself with the back foot in case the lead came disengages from the vice. More than a few apprentices have take a spill during this part of the glass project. It might be considered the second greatest occupational hazard of the industry, the first being bleeding fingers.

Step-by-step: Building a window

Eventually, after much cutting and painting of glass, enough pieces are completed to actually begin assembling a stained glass window. The same pattern that was used as a guide for painting the glass pieces, is again used as the pattern for building. The window must be constructed on top of the pattern and precisely matched in size, so that it later fits into the church window opening. Here's the pattern with the wooden stops bracing the top right corner where the building begins. You'll notice that the painted borders are identical in all the windows.

And here is a collection of tools used to assist in that process, which requires precise fitting of the glass into the lead channels that hold the glass pieces together. Lead nippers, various stopping knives, and horseshoe nails are included in the line-up.

More later as we proceed through the step-by-step.

Piece by piece

And so the process of cutting, painting, and firing continues for each window, always making sure to keep the pieces properly numbered and sorted in separate boxes, so that when it comes time to build the windows, all the glass will be accounted for and ready.

The baptism

This is the final window in the completed sets so far. The lovely sky glass nearest the top border is an opalescent multi-color cut from the middle of the sheet. This variegated type of glass was developed by Louis Comfort Tiffany and John LaFarge with the intent of creating very painterly and naturalistic windows, and often the artist will buy a large sheet of glass to get that perfect small cut out of the center:

Next we'll show a series of repairs at St. Charles nearby, and share some of the challenges of matching and replacing old stained glass, as well as removing windows from old moldings.

Jesus in the Temple

This window is particularly effective due to the atmospheric background and shadowy figures created with glass painting. The method harks back to European cathedral windows - using a mixture of ground pigments and glass - that is applied with special techniques, and then fired in a kiln to temperatures ranging from 1050-1350 degrees. When the glass itself just begins to soften and slump, the paint fuses into the surface, guaranteeing permanence against all but the most aggressive abrasion.

Indeed, it is the metal - the lead came - that is the most fragile part of a stained glass window, and most subject to the deterioration wrought by time and improper cleaning methods. We always advise our clients that "benign neglect" is the best upkeep of their stained glass, and most certainly to never clean the stained glass with modern cleansers like Windex spray.

The Pieta

The most famous rendition of The Pieta is by Michelangelo, and resides at St. Peter's in Vatican City. Viewed by millions of worshippers through the centuries, it was damaged by a hammer-wielding vandal in 1972. After restoration, the marble statue was enclosed in a shatter-proof glass enclosure that could only be viewed from a distance. Most good images today come in the form of professional photographs available in printed documentaries.







One such black and white photo became the inspiration for the stained glass Pieta at St. Catharine of Siena. This is a good example of what artists refer to as "derivative work" in which one artwork inspires and informs another, many times in a different medium.

Angels on High

Who amongst us doesn't have a special fondness for angels? The next windows to be completed at St. Catharine's were St. Gabriel and St. Michael up high, and to complete the windows viewable from the front of the church. This window is cut and placed on the pattern in preparation for leading (at left). You can see the numbered glass pieces, which correspond to the cut pattern pieces as well as the appropriate areas in the full-size cartoon. This process keeps hundreds of pieces of glass organized during the cutting and building procedure, the portion of the project that probably is the most time-consuming.

Here's Michael Greer on the scissor-lift installing one window.

These are the completed windows before installation:

Alas, it's occasionally the case that the installed windows are difficult to photograph due to lighting and height of placement, and though these add to the overall beauty of the church, they are not as readily apparent as the other stained glass windows.

The completed entry windows

This is the entry of the church before the Ascension and Assumption stained glass windows were installed:




The Assumption of the HolyVirgin is installed in the left window.

The Ascension of Our Lord Jesus Christ is installed in the right window.

Altar windows

The altar windows were the first completed in large part for reasons of comfort. Because the altar faces east and because services are most often in the morning, the blinding sun was a bit uncomfortable for everyone save the priest, who stood in silhouette before his squinting congregation.

Also, artist in residence and sculptor, Norbert Ohnmacht had already completed the life-size corpus, so the windows on either side of this needed images to complement the hanging sculpture. Symbolically, the East represents Calvary so each window was designed to support the centerpiece, the bronze crucifix. The installation was completed in time for Easter services that year. It is not uncommon to plan completion and installation of stained glass to coincide with the holy day represented in the image. Some, though not all, stained glass studios do this.