Glass Crosses
Cass County woman puts broken pieces back together better
Yvette Wood believes she’s had many miracles in her life, and she’s just found another. She breaks glass and then puts the pieces back again, but this time on a cross. It renews her faith because the pieces sparkle all the more, she said.
“I feel a great calmness come over me when doing this. It’s like life,” she said. “You see the beauty around you, but if that beauty gets broken, you put the pieces back together again in an even more beautiful way.” She calls it being “grounded.” “I don’t even know how or the way I’m arranging those pieces of glass. It just happens through me. Then someone will see the glass cross and tell me, ‘Oh, that’s beautiful. Can I buy it?’” No, Yvette tells them. “I’ll give it to you and hope you see the same beauty and meaning for putting broken things back together that I do,” she explains.
An additional feature of her own work is that the wood of her crosses is cedar, which has its own beauty and also reminds her of her mother who died recently.
“My mother had left one gift for me—a tall armoire. My husband James brought it back from San Antonio, and he decided to rebuild it for me. He decided to cover it with cedar.”
“I had these scraps left over,” said James. “And one day Yvette saw them and asked me to build crosses out of them. That was the start of the glass crosses. She does it all the time now.”
They two do more at their home in the Cass community. They take care of James’ mother, who has Alzheimer’s. And on the weekend, Yvette sits with two other patients who also have Alzheimer’s.
Yvette said she knows what it is to have “breaking” experiences in life. She’s had them. But also, she said, there have been many miracles.
“If I’m starting to ask why or control my feelings, I can start work on a glass cross and be there for a long time with
a peacefulness that renews my faith. Sometimes we are broken when we go before God and yet we can be renewed.”
Yvette has at least 50 of the crosses around the home now. To help spread their meaning, she has placed one display rack in Atlanta’s downtown antique mall and flea market The Rabbit Hole.
Her display does not appear to be seeking money, however. In fact, a large white sheet says with handwritten letters, “Buy one and get one free.”
It seems Yvette is trying to get out another message.
“It’s a story I can’t put into words,” she said. “It goes back to a dream I’ve had. In it, I am going back to this home and find it’s been vandalized. As I look I see my mother standing on the steps, and with her arms crossed, she’s saying, ‘I will not
“The glass pieces and cross of wood aren’t coming from my mind. It’s coming from my soul or else I don’t know where. If anything, it’s from the spirit.” —Yvette Wood
be broken.’”
“And I admire her for that. But if we are, we can be put back even more beautifully. This is the goal of my work.
“The glass pieces and cross of wood aren’t coming from my mind,” she said. “It’s coming from my soul or else I don’t know where. If anything, it’s from the spirit.”