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Brother Aidan McDermott, O.S.B., Priory High School

Stained Glass I and II

Brother Aidan McDermott knows there’s not much practical application for the skills students learn in his art class at Priory, an all-boys high school run by the Benedictine monks.

“Most of my students will go on to be businessmen and doctors and lawyers, not stained-glass makers. Stained glass isn’t even trendy for the artists: That’s glass blowing, which is too much of a liability to teach here,” McDermott says with a laugh.

But monasteries have always preserved culture and knowledge, all things slow and meditative, and many things forgotten. That’s the value in what McDermott does: its tradition.

“I knew when I joined the monastery that I’d be teaching at Priory, but I didn’t expect to end up in art,” McDermott says. “I was just fascinated with the stained glass.”

Brother Symeon Gillette first showed the novice McDermott how to select, shape and paint pieces of glass, then how to assemble them into a larger project. Under Gillette’s guidance, students had previously made several large windows, including a history of the monastery in stained glass and a replica of a window from France’s Chartres cathedral.

When the older monk retired from teaching, he named McDermott to continue Priory’s stained-glass tradition. So that’s what McDermott does—trying, in the meantime, to pass on some monastic virtues as well.

“This is more of a character-building class than a career move. It teaches patience and perseverance,” he explains. “I tell the guys that it takes time, that you have to be patient. At first you say that, and they don’t really listen to you. They’re so used to having everything right now in the modern world. Then they finish their first project and see how all the pieces don’t fit, or the solder looks funny. I take that process and use it to show them that this is what happens when you try to rush.”