Commissions
Stained Glass for New Church Construction
A stained glass commission is one of the most significant undertakings in the life of a church. Of all the materials a church is built from, only glass brings in light—and light, in a church, is theology. Glass is immediately felt and seen, present in every moment of worship, woven into the life of the church.
Glass is unlike any other material. Light does not pass through it so much as it is transformed by it, and what appears on the other side can feel like another world entirely. And yet the glass holds the marks of its making: the breath of the blower, the trace of the brush and the acid, the hand of every maker. The earthly and the luminous, reconciled in one material.
Stained glass can anoint your eyes with wonder. Certain moments stay with me.
An engineer who had reasoned his way out of the possibility that stained glass could do anything was stopped one Sunday morning, unable to explain what he felt.
A community placed a book of names before the Sister Death window, Francis's last words made luminous in glass that is mostly darkness: deep blues and black, a single thread connecting the dark to the light.
One Easter, a pastor paused, turned to the congregation, and said: look at those windows this morning. He is risen. He is risen indeed.
I am a painter who works in glass. My formation as an artist and as a person of faith are not separate things—both began early and have deepened together over a lifetime of making work for sacred spaces. In every commission, my role is that of a servant: the work is for the community and its worship.
Working with Architects and Building Committees
Design is a collaboration. Each commission begins with conversation. My role is to come to you, and to listen. Understanding the uniqueness of each community's faith and mission is essential—what I hear becomes the starting point.
Stained glass can be part of a new building, a renovation, or a completion of something begun years ago when resources ran short. Whatever the circumstance, the work begins in the same place—with a community.
A commission brings many people to the table—pastors, building committees, diocesan leadership, architects, liturgical consultants. This is familiar ground. I welcome these conversations; they deepen the work.
These are the kinds of questions I like to begin with:
Who are we as a community?
What distinguishes us?
What is our work in the world?
Is there a defining scripture? Is the name of the church a primary consideration?
What would you like to see?
What would you like to feel, standing before the glass?
How can the glass serve your worship and support the liturgy?
Scope
Commissions range from a single chapel window to a complete program for a new church.
Process
I begin with concept designs, typically one or two distinct directions. Through your feedback and our conversations, I refine the color, scale, and imagery into a final design for the community to approve.
I make the windows with Derix Glasstudios in Taunusstein, Germany, a five-generation studio I have worked with for nearly twenty years. Some committees have made the journey to visit during fabrication—standing in the studio, watching their windows take shape before the church itself is finished.
Installation
I coordinate installation closely with the building team and architect. On some projects I work with local glaziers; on others, craftsmen from Derix travel to the site, depending on the complexity of the work.
The Glass
Most people in the United States have never seen mouth-blown stained glass. What they know is machine-made—milky, flat, murky, industrial. What I work with is something else entirely.
Mouth-blown antique glass is jewel-like in a way that feels less like architecture and more like a vision—the walls of the New Jerusalem made present in light and color. When the sun shines through it, it can throw color across the full length of a church, deep reds and blues moving over floors and walls as the sun moves, breathtaking in a way no photograph prepares you for. It doesn't block the view. It transforms it.
When I work with this glass, I think in washes and layers, just as I do in watercolor. Sometimes I layer several pieces of glass to deepen their colors mixing. Sometimes I etch a layer back to thin the wash, like adding water to the paint.
The opaque glass—what Germans call Opak—is its opposite, and equally extraordinary. You cannot see through it. Instead it holds light within itself, setting an atmosphere, a presence, something close to mystery. There is no analogy for it. When the sun sets, this glass holds the last light of the evening and stays illuminated until there is no light left to hold.
The studio's new windows are in some of Europe's great churches—Cologne Cathedral, Notre-Dame de Reims, Augsburg Cathedral, Schwerin Cathedral. Its restoration work includes the medieval glass of Strasbourg. The material, the craftsmanship, the beauty—there is nothing else like it.
Budget and Timeline
The cost of a stained glass commission varies enormously by scale, glass type, and program. A single number here would risk being misleading, either overpromising to a small chapel window or underpromising to a full cathedral program. Every project receives a detailed quote that accounts for every aspect of the work, from design through fabrication and installation. I have never added charges beyond an accepted quote.
For many churches the design renderings developed during the early phase have proven among the most effective tools for a capital campaign, helping donors see exactly what is being created for their community. Most projects move from first conversation to installed glass within six to eighteen months.
For architects, I can work with file types such as DWG, Revit, and SketchUp to provide renderings and light studies for season and time of day. All glass panels, whether integrated into IGUs or a separate panel, are tempered and engineered to meet building codes.
Case Study: Our Lady of the Angels, Scottsdale, Arizona
One commission, from first phone call to dedication:
I was at Dairy Queen with my family when the call came—a liturgical consultant reaching out about a new Franciscan church in Arizona. Nine windows. A building still being designed. And an invitation to come to Arizona and simply get to know one another.
I am a stained glass artist based in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and my commissions have taken me across the United States and Canada. I am fluent in Spanish and welcome inquiries from Spanish-speaking communities. My commissions span stained glass, mosaic, and terrazzo for liturgical and public spaces.