Adding new life with an ancient art
STAINED GLASS
NASHVILLE — Sunlight illuminated the “Easter Morning” scene of Mary Magdalene weeping at an empty tomb while a resurrected Jesus stood behind her.
Muted for decades by grime and discoloring, the red robes wrapping around Mary and the yellow halo circling Christ’s face now glow vibrantly alongside the rest of the newly restored stained glass windows at First Evangelical Lutheran Church.
Warped glass, cracks and lead fractures had threatened the future of the windows, some of which date back roughly a century. More than a year ago, the downtown Nashville congregation committed to making sure the colorful and theologically-rich illustrations remain a part of its sacred space for years to come.
Even with work left to do, the change is undeniable, said the Rev. Pamela Smith, as she recalled seeing the first rehabbed windows go up in the sanctuary.
“The techniques haven’t changed in nearly a thousand years, nor has the reason for stained glass.”
– DENNIS HARMON, PRESIDENT OF EMMANUEL STAINED GLASS STUDIO
“It literally took my breath away and moved me to tears,” said Smith, who leads the nearly 160-year-old congregation.
Stained glass, an ancient craft almost synonymous with church, brightens countless sanctuaries across the globe. While not embraced by all churches, its often-admired beauty and legacy as a teaching tool continue to enhance the worship experience for today’s faithful.
With the low literacy rates of centuries past, stained glass served as sermons for the eyes while also adding to the sunlight streaming into the worship spaces, said Dennis Harmon, president of Emmanuel Stained Glass Studio in Nashville. The 45-yearold company’s work can be found in churches throughout the South and beyond.
“The techniques haven’t changed in nearly a thousand years, nor has the reason for stained glass,” Harmon said. “It is still in an environment to create a moving experience, to pluck your heart strings.”
David Baulch, the church member leading the restoration project at First Lutheran, has felt that, too. He’s sat in the pews in the adult chapel listening to a sermon on the transfiguration of Jesus while looking at the round stained glass window above the altar that depicts the same Bible account.
“It impacts you,” said Baulch, the president of First Lutheran’s church council. “You feel the warmth. You feel like there’s a presence with you.”
But stained glass is costly. Craftsmen say the price of restorations and new commissions are project specific, and can range widely from about $200 a square foot to a couple of thousand dollars a square foot.
Kirk Weaver, the president of the nearly 100-year-old Pittsburgh Stained Glass Studios in Pennsylvania, thinks it is worth the cost and is thankful his clients from across the U.S. — including First Lutheran in Nashville — do, too.
It is a highly visible feature of a church, drawing the eyes of everyone who walks in the door, Weaver said. Restoring stained glass extends its life and that magnetism.
While it may take a congregation years to secure the funding, Weaver has found that churchgoers are more willing to invest in a stained glass project than they are to give the pastor a raise or pay the church’s higher-than expected gas bill. Some members even turn windows into family memorials with future generations paying for restorations.
“We tend to look at stained glass as being forever,” Weaver said. “If it’s cared for, there’s windows in Europe that are 700 and 800 years old.”
Stained glass can last if its upkeep is prioritized, but Weaver knows that is not a reality for many churches in America. Not all can afford to restore it.
Some of the work created by his studio, which has been run by his family for three generations, no longer exists or is in a precarious state. With a number of churches closing throughout the Northeast, stained glass has outlasted congregations, too.
“Within 2 miles of my office, there is what was once a very large Catholic church, that is a micro brewery. Now, instead of the altar you have big casks of beer being brewed,” Weaver said. “But the stained glass is still there.”
To prevent that religious and secular clash, Weaver has noticed some churches will strip out the religious iconography, including the stained glass windows, before selling the building. It is warehoused for future use by other congregations, he said.
It can be hard for Weaver to watch a piece of stained glass his company created go from casting colors on a sacred space to a nonreligious one or disappearing altogether.
“In some ways it’s kind of like a family member that dies,” Weaver said. “You hate to see it happen and you’re upset when it does, but eventually you get over it and move forward.”
But change does not have to be a death knell for stained glass. In Nashville, First Lutheran took the stained glass windows with them — and commissioned additional ones — for its current church building, which was dedicated in 1951.
LifeWay Christian Resources, the publishing arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, saved its stained glass, too.
The organization, opting to preserve historical elements from its former Nashville campus — imploded earlier this year — incorporated the colorful glass into the design of its new headquarters, which went up last year just a few blocks away, said LifeWay spokeswoman Carol Pipes.
The craftsmen at Emmanuel studio have brought stained glass back to life in religious and nonreligious spaces across the city, Harmon said. They also create brand new commissioned work that helps illuminate sanctuaries.
Harmon, who meets with church committees and designs the stained glass, consults clergy and researches the religious figures in the windows, making sure the saints and symbols he includes are accurately depicted.
“It’s up to me to kind of come up with some kind of imagery when they say, ‘We want the Archangel Raphael,’” Harmon said.
On a recent Thursday in March, Harmon and his staff were busy working on windows — painting, firing and cutting glass for various churches. Among the multitude of decisions, Harmon must consider how the colors will visually bleed together as the sunlight hits the stained glass ,as well as how they will impact the environment.
Since the medium relies on sunlight, stained glass is ever changing with the weather and the seasons, Harmon said.
“It becomes a very living and important part of the worship space,” he said.
It can also send a message to those outside. Restoration work can signal a renewed commitment to the church.
Weaver had worked with a Catholic priest who had him revamp the stained glass every time he moved to a new parish. People understand that stained glass is expensive, the priest had explained to Weaver.
They draw conclusions that people are giving money to the church so good things must be happening within its walls, he said.
The restored windows at First Lutheran in Nashville are crisp in the daylight and sparkle at night when the lights are on in the sanctuary. Passersby have taken notice, Baulch said.
“People thought,” Baulch said, “‘Wow! That building’s alive.’”
Reach Holly Meyer at hmeyer@tennessean.com or 615-259-8241 and on Twitter @HollyAMeyer.