The Breathtaking Beauty of Stained Glass Art

"Stained Glass Expressions" is an impressive exhibit of glass artwork by San Juan College Encore students presented at the Henderson Fine Art Gallery in Farmington. It showcases the myriad of skills that one can learn from taking glass art classes at San Juan College, and displays the versatility of glass as an artistic medium, exemplified by the various types of objects on display. You're watching the "Local NEWS Network," brought to you by Distil Beer Wine Spirits, and CMIT Solutions. I'm Hayley Opsal. The breathtaking beauty of stained glass produces unique and varied effects by coloring, refracting, obscuring, and fragmenting light to make a final piece more robust and durable. Encore instructor, John Nichols, teaches the Tiffany technique, a method that includes wrapping each piece of glass in a copper foil and then soldering them together.

It is what all these pieces are wrapped with. You're not going to individually see the foil itself, it's going to be soldered, because each of the pieces is going to need to be attached, and that's how we use a lead tin solder in this specific instance. Both of these pieces meet, we run the solder seam up and then they're now connected, and that copper foil gets covered and is now an inherent part of the fabrication process of the glass piece.

The most traditional and accomplished piece in the show is also the largest. A three-foot by three-foot window rendition of Shiprock, or as the artist calls it, "The Rock with Wings." T. Greg Merrion uses the medieval glass requisite colors of brown, green, yellow, ruby, and cobalt blue.

I began working on it in September of '22, and I finished it at the end of August in '23. So it took a full year to do the piece, and here it is.

Stained glass, sometimes called antique glass, can be a tricky and difficult medium to work with.

The glass sometimes has a mind of its own. You think you've got a good cut and a nice, good run, and then all of a sudden, your glass can run the wrong way. So it can be, but it's very rewarding when you see a finished project.

Encore classes at San Juan College are designed for students 50 years and older. The glass art classes are taught in the Trades and Technology building on the north end of campus where glass artist, Doug Hallock, demonstrated the process of creating a small stained glass object.

You trace out the pattern such as this, and then you cut on the line, so you actually cut the line away, and then you use the grinder to make it smooth. Then you foil it, like some of those other ones that are foiled, and then you solder it. But everything is from a pattern, to start with.

Sometimes they're original, sometimes they're from a book. Just depends on... Is that right?

Yeah. Then, well, to cut it, you use a cutter, then you break it along the cut, then you snap it, and you hope everything breaks right.

Encore classes are open to students 18 and older. In addition to classes, the Encore program offers memberships and activities. To learn more about these and other stories, go to farmingtonlocal.news. Thank you for watching this edition of the "Local NEWS Network." I'm Hayley Opsal.