Living: Stained Glass, Back and Blooming

(3 of 3)

Chicago's Giannini & Hilgart, the Midwest's oldest stained-glass studio (founded in 1868), struggled along for years on sparse church commissions until the boom hit in 1973; its business then started tripling annually, to $170,000 in 1977, and 90% of its output now goes to homes and businesses. Dealers specializing in supplies for the craft have also been transported on a beam of dancing light (green). Hollander Glass company in Long Beach, Calif., which started in 1956 as a small studio specializing in windows for churches and residences, is now solely in the business of selling the glass—$4 million worth in 1977.

Glass art may in the past have been stifled by its traditions: Gothic, Renaissance, Victorian, art nouveau, Tiffany, art deco. Today artists and artisans, students and professionals are creating a distinctively American form, moving away from mere decoration and drawing eclectically from the other visual arts. As Artist-Editor Fred Abrams writes in Glass magazine, a journal for artists and craftsmen: "Glass is the most beautiful and magical art medium in the world,... and we have only begun to explore its possibilities and potential." To which its admirers and practitioners can only add amen, translucent tomorrows and "gret joye."