Living Art – Why I Love Stained Glass

What is it about stained glass that has so captured me? My first memories of stained glass are from my childhood while sitting in church. But it wasn’t the windows that caught my attention. It was the colors transmitted to the floor from those windows. I would watch the rainbow of colors dance along the floor, getting brighter and softer as the clouds moved by. Let’s face it, when you are a child, it’s kind of impossible to pay attention to the sermon.

Later, of course, I appreciate the windows and the craftsmanship as well. For me there is just something magical about sunlight streaming through a stained glass window. I once described it as “living art” and indeed it is. The colors in a stained glass window change with every passing hour and the movement of the sun.

Shortly after installing a stained glass transom in our family room, I walked into the room early one morning to see a glorious shadow on the wall opposite the window. I actually walked into the room every few minutes to see the changing pattern. It was ethereal. I also have a framed stained glass panel hanging in my bathroom. This panel has some beveled glass in it. Bevels are like prisms casting beautiful rainbows when the light passes through them. When the sun is just right, this panel casts a rainbow on the wall of my bedroom. This morning the rainbow landed on the stream of water from my showerhead and a little rainbow danced among the water droplets.

How could you not love stained glass!