Photography by Kevin A. Roberts
Ten years ago, John Schwaig left the priesthood. He bought a town house near Lafayette Square. The sellers took its stained-glass transom with them. “I should’ve been a stickler,” he says. “I missed it.” He learned to make his own replacement from artisan Brian Derton, and despite zero background in art, Schwaig took to it fast. At the time, he was testing for the police academy. “It’s a little safer bleeding from cut glass than from bullets,” he decided. He’s now proprietor and resident artist at the Fabrication Arts Center (1916 Park, 314-776-4442, fabartscenter.com).
• If you can’t do it here, where could you do it? Stained glass is perfect for St. Louis’ old homes.
• I just restored eight medallions from the Fox Theatre. One was missing a piece of red glass, and some were so weak, they didn’t want to transport them. I made a house call, braced them, and brought every kind of red glass so I could match the texture.
• There’s clear glass with no color; cathedral glass, which is clear but stained; opalescent glass, which has some degree of opacity; glass that’s clear but streaky, perfect for a sky; iridescent glass that changes colors, ripple glass; drapery glass with deep folds; seedy glass, with bubbles that make it look old; dichroic glass, coated with metal oxides so it’s highly reflective…
• Front entrances are fun: You can let the design flow from door to transom to sidelights. First impressions are important.
• I do a lot of art glass for privacy, in bathroom or bedroom windows or front doors. Why not make it art instead of drab draperies? Even clear glass that’s beveled adds privacy, because it distorts the image.
• About 98 percent of my glass is U.S.-made, but I do have some French glass; it has colors and textures you can’t find here.
• Most glass is not quite an eighth of an inch thick. Some come quarter-inch, and in some, one sheet is thinner at one end and thicker at the other, because of the way they roll it. But by the time you score it, break it, grind it, polish off the roughness, and apply the copper foil, you can’t see the difference.
• You lay the copper foil on each piece, and that is what the solder adheres to. Solder is 60 percent tin and 40 percent lead. It has a silvery look, and you usually add patina—you brush a fluid onto it and the chemical reaction ages it black or turns it a copper color.
• First you score, then you break. Big pieces, I can snap with my hands like a cracker. Tiny pieces, I use a grozing pliers. Some glass is not too cuttable-friendly. In that case, you tap underneath it to deepen the score line. That meteorite piece in the window, the delicate round cuts were done by ring saw.
• I dabble in the kiln a little bit, for fusing and slumping glass. You’re at 1450 degrees, so when you look through the peephole, it’s just a red glow; you can’t even tell the color of the glass. At that heat, glass will slump into a mold and keep flowing until it hits something. Then you vent the kiln and let it cool slowly—that’s called annealing—because if you overdo the heat, you’ll have a blob, and if you cool too fast, the glass will shatter.
• When you bevel a mirror, it will look frosty unless you continue grinding and polishing to get it clear. It’s diamond grit on a wheel that’s taking off that glass. As the wheels turn, there’s a little spigot above each wheel, and it drips water to cool the glass as it spins. Otherwise, you’d scorch the glass with the heat of all that friction.
• You can sandblast glass with power tools and fine silicate sand—it’s worth the mess!—or etch it with acid. You can add jewels. Even stone can be translucent if it’s cut and polished thin enough.
• A bevel picks up light; it sends the sun’s rays at an angle. You sometimes get a rainbow effect.
• Art glass usually doesn’t replace clear glass; we put it on the inside, so you have double protection from the elements, and use clips or glazing points to hold it inside the molding.
• If you don’t have a family crest or emblem, you can certainly make one up. Just put in certain things about the family name or history or what they like. Bishops do that for their coats of arms.
• If you can see light coming through cracks between the panes, gaps where they’re starting to separate, it might not be well made. Some of the solder widths can be too thin. Not everything’s well reproduced or well made.
• All art glass still has to be done individually. You’ve got to put the foil around it. That takes a human hand.
• Glass is stronger than you think, yet it weighs less than you expect. It’s very hard, yet it’s not a true solid; it still has properties of a liquid. I think about how lightning strikes a beach and you get sea glass…
• There’s a certain openness to the environment that you need as a priest and as an artist. You’ve got to be in tune with what’s going on around you.
• There is no ugly stained glass.
