Showcased, are designs by artists Bryant, and Jordan Stanton and Joseph Barbieri

Friday evening, at the Members Preview, the show kicked off with music and remarks by the artists. Attending were members of the Art Center and friends, enjoying wine and champagne and a impressive spread of gourmet goodies.
The show will continue until October 1st and is open to the public.

Highlighted in the show are:

Bryant Stanton’s fused glass art.
In a first ever showing, Bryant unveiled a piece of himself in the fused glass, musing to the crowd about how each piece speaks of a time, or a rite of passage in his life. The brilliantly colored pieces are worth going to see alone. Also, on display are Bryant’s stained glass designs and leaded windows of Stanton Glass Studio.

Joe Barbieri’s art is in two mediums, oil on canvas, and hand painted glass.
The beautiful landscapes and western art are a blaze of color and southern warmth, and his hand-painted glass scenes bring the designs to life.
The painting on glass is a melding of talents by Bryant, and Joseph to create Stanton Glass Studio’s one of a kind designs.

Jordan Stanton’s art is mouth blown hot glass pieces.
In amazing colors and graceful shapes, Jordan creates vases, bowls and many other amazing pieces. Each piece speaks for itself, an unique expression of the artist’s joy of creating with molten glass!

Window Accessibility

In bidding a window project the stained glass contractor factors in the accessibility of the windows. Can we use a step ladder? How about a scaffold set-up or is an articulating lift better suited for the jobsite?

On some job sites, it’s all of these; one window is on the ground floor while another is two stories above in the choir loft. Our studio once bid a job restoring some fairly simple art glass windows from 1910 on a Dallas Cathedral. The problem wasn’t in the restoration of these windows but in the accessibility. The windows were situated in the stairwell leading up to the belfries and the Cathedral was on two of the busiest streets in downtown Dallas. A boom lift would reach some of the lower windows but a crane (with a two-man platform) was needed for the upper windows.

In order to use this equipment our artisans were required to work at night, get permission and permits from the city, hire a crane operator plus flagmen to direct traffic. This had to be done twice, once in the initial retrieval of the windows and then again during the re-installation. Needless to say the removal and the installation cost more the actual restoration of the windows. Some jobsites also offer challenges such as slopping lawns, underground sprinkler heads, hedges around the building, trees and beehives etc.

Thus, all obstacles to working on the removal and installation involved in the restoration or repair of a stained glass window factor into the final cost of a restoration bid. No one bidding a project wants to go back to the “owners” to tell them “I thought I could reach your windows from scaffolding but the ground is too soft and the bushes are in the way. We need a boom lift, but this will add to the final costs.”

Testing for Lead Paint and Asbestos

On most large restoration projects the architect or the general contractor will have tested for lead paint and asbestos in the building (including the stained glass window frames and sashes) before work begins. Window glazing compound putty is tested not only for lead paint but for asbestos content.

In cases of serious lead abatement, environmental impact, and the endangerment to those handling these hazardous materials, the general contractor will usually elect to have professional abate the lead and asbestos from the windows before the windows are removed. The liability to the owner and the general contractor is too great to leave it in the hands of amateurs. If there is no asbestos in the putty the contractor will allow the stained glass studio to remove the windows and then abate the lead paint.

On smaller jobs with no general contractor involved, the environmental issues are left up to the stained glass artisans. Buildings erected prior to the 1960’s more than likely have lead paint present in the exterior paint and possibly asbestos in the window glazing.

Lead paint and asbestos laden putty is considered hazardous waste and should be handled as such by the stained glass artisans for their own safety. The craftsperson should be wearing proper clothing protection and respirators rated for lead dust and asbestos when scrapping the lead laden putty around the window, especially when that putty is dry, brittle and dusty. Studios that allow lead paint coated window putty fall to the ground are further contaminating the soil with lead.

Building Codes

Before bidding a job the stained glass studio should become familiar with local and municipal codes. In a small town blocking the sidewalk maybe winked at, but in metropolitan locations like Dallas, blocking a sidewalk often results in costly fines. The city may require the studio to erect an enclosed protective covering over the sidewalk for the project’s duration.

Environmental issues are factors that are all figured into the window contractors’ restoration or replication proposal. It all adds to the bottom line cost of the project above the cost of the actual square foot price of the replacement cost of a window.

Bryant Stanton, President
Stanton Glass Studio, LLC.
Waco, TX

Made in Texas
What weighs 32,000 pounds and is more than thirty feet tall? The largest DNA in the state.
by Kristin Ellertson

Bryant Stanton had worked on large projects before—the domes at the Driskill Hotel, in Austin, and Vic and Anthony’s Steakhouse, in Houston, to name a few—but nothing of this magnitude. His latest? A 33-and-a-half-foot-tall and 32-inch-wide glass-and-iron sculpture of a DNA double helix. “It was just one of those jokes that in Texas everything has to be big,” says Stanton, who started Stanton Glass Studio, in Waco, thirty years ago. “When we finished this project, the enormity of the size of it was like, ‘Wow, this has to be the largest DNA in Texas.’”
The massive structure, which appears in the stairwell of the new science building at McLennan Community College, in Waco, hangs down three flights of stairs and was a gift from philanthropists James and Nell Hawkins, a testament to how science and art complement each other. The couple had worked with Stanton on a glass fixture in the building’s teaching lobby and wanted to collaborate with him again. Stanton says the idea to do a DNA sculpture simply popped into his head. But then he had to figure out how to execute it.
Just like a real strand of DNA, this double helix has 23 ladders. The structure arrived in fifty pieces of glass and metal that needed to be assembled. It was hoisted up in three parts, but the mechanism broke due to the incredible amount of weight—32,000 pounds hanging. A shorter lanyard was brought in from Austin, and the structure was hung after a seventeen-hour installation process. The hard work paid off. The piece is inspirational, which is the idea.
“Science sometimes seems cold and stiff, but it’s not,” says Lisa Wilhelmi, the college’s community relations director. “It’s living, and these two sculptures show more of a living atmosphere.”
And for Stanton, life is all about living. His interest in glassworks blossomed at Texas Tech during one of his off-campus soul searches when he inevitably asked himself, “What do I want to do with the rest of my life?” and ran into an old hippie at a supermarket storefront who taught him to make a stained-glass butterfly. That same butterfly hangs in his office today. A native of Long Island, Stanton is passionate about his glasswork and hopes to design for the rest of his life. “You have to live life every day, and that’s what life is about,” he says. “I don’t want to think I’ll start living when I retire.” He has certainly been a motivator to his seven children. His son Jordan began working with glass when he was sixteen and helped his father build the DNA sculpture. “He’s been a strong figure in my life,” says Jordan. “He taught me all about the business and how to become successful.” Here’s hoping that his DNA structure will inspire others as well.
To see the glass DNA structure being assembled, go to vimeo.com/7286060.

Exclusively servicing the trade since 1997, TODL provides design professionals and specifiers access to more than 260,000+ products for their residential, contract, commercial, hospitality and green projects.

Membership to TODL provides design professionals with access to product specifications ranging from surfaces to lighting to seating to case goods to kitchen and bath products and more 24 hours a day from any location in the world.

TODL members are hand-qualified by live personnel and are not automatically granted membership. This ensures that access to The Trade Only Design Library is limited to appropriate professionals who are qualified to work directly with manufacturers.

TODL adds thousands of products every month from manufacturers you know to smaller, more unique ones you don’t, providing design professionals with access to an ever expanding selection of products for their design projects.

TODL… where design professionals make their vision a reality.

“I have relied on TODL to do much of my design research. I actually prefer to login to TODL instead of using my in-house library. I use TODL to specify and purchase frequently. This is truly an invaluable source.”
T.P. – D & T Consultants

“I am writing to let you know what an incredible tool TODL has been for our firm. Our firm does Commercial and Public Works projects. TODL has enabled us to quickly generate folders of images for our clients to view and has enabled us to expedite our decision making process due to your well organized, informative web site. TODL is a valuable tool in today’s complex design world.”
C.G. – Gillis & Associates Architects, Inc.

By Grace Cicardo
Special to The Texas Catholic

In 1899, Ursuline women gathered to celebrate the Silver Jubilee and to come together as a group of alumnae. This year, more than 110 years later, women, young and old, came together to celebrate the school’s rich history and tradition and to embrace a symbol of the past.

Many high schools have alumni reunions, but Ursuline’s Alumnae Homecoming is rooted in a special tradition started more than 100 years ago.

Ursuline Academy was started in Dallas in 1874, after a group of Ursuline nuns came to Dallas from Galveston.

In 1899, a few women felt they needed to give a donation as part of the first action as an alumnae association, then known as the Old Pupil’s Association. They donated a stained glass window, in honor of Ursuline Academy’s Silver Jubilee.

The window cost $1,000. It was designed and created by German artist Franz Xavier Zettler, who used large pieces of glass with a minimum number of lead lines. Zettler is widely recognized as the master of the use of perspective and is credited with being the first to use three-point perspective in stained glass windows.

The stained glass, a depiction of Christ and the Five Wise Virgins, was displayed in the chapel of the old Ursuline Academy on Bryan Street.

The stained glass conveys the wisdom of Ursuline founders and their mission to educate women, particularly insightful in the 19th century.

When Ursuline Academy moved to its current location on Walnut Hill more than 50 years ago, the stained glass moved too, but remained in storage until 1974. At that time, the window was donated to the Dallas Historical Society for display in Old City Park in honor of Ursuline Academy’s 100th anniversary.

However, Old City Park officials could not find a location for the large window and it was returned to Ursuline in its original crates. The stained glass was rediscovered in a storage shed on the campus in 1994.

New beginning

Once Ursuline administrators knew they would have a permanent home for it, they began the restoration. The meticulous restoration was completed by Stanton Glass Studio in Waco.

Bryant Stanton, the company’s owner, was astounded by the workmanship in the stained glass. “The most unusual aspect of this project is the way it came to us — it was a do-it-yourself jigsaw puzzle with thousands of pieces,” says Stanton.

The window was not fully pictured in the few photos that were kept of the window. This was one of the many difficulties in repairing the glass.

Once the restoration work was completed, the glass was installed in the new French Family Science, Math and Technology Center last year.

It brings the rich history of the founding Ursuline sisters to the new, sleek building. The building was blessed on Jan. 31 during the Alumnae Homecoming with alumnae, young and old, coming to celebrate the past and the future.

Sister Mary Troy blessed the window with the help of Aimee Baillargeon Griffiths, class of 1990 and president of the Alumnae Board.

Sybil Tucker, class of 1951 and Ursuline Academy archivist, best describes the addition and its contribution to the new building: “Part of the Ursuline mission is to educate the whole woman — mind and soul. The window speaks to the soul just as the new French Family Science, Math, and Technology Center speaks to the mind.”

Grace Cicardo, a sophomore at Ursuline Academy in Dallas, is a member of The Texas Catholic Youth Advisory Board.

(c) 2010 The Texas Catholic Online

Hand-painted stained glass window - Picnic Scene - with lightbox

Stanton Glass Studio recently completed this hand-painted picnic scene window for the kitchen of a home in the Houston, Texas area. It has a frame of Victorian scrollwork and jewels. It is illuminated by a lightbox, as the kitchen was added on to the home later and had no natural light. It gives the kitchen the appearance of having a real window, showing the lake, trees, and fields beyond. The homeowner loved how it turned out. We think it looks like it was built with the kitchen; while it is newer, it was custom made for the space and we are very pleased with the result.

Hand-painted stained glass window - Picnic Scene - with lightbox

Stanton Glass studio stained glass restoration

The “Art” and “Science” windows in the Old Main Building at the University of Texas at Austin were damaged in a spring hailstorm and needed to be restored to their original beauty. As we began the restoration process, someone happened to find an old black-and-white photograph from the 1950’s that showed the beautiful, hand-painted, arched transom that was originally above the “Art” and “Science” windows before it mysteriously disapeared. From that black-and-white photograph, we recreated the transom. Going from two old, broken windows to a completely restored and rebuilt transom and panels, this commission is an example of the excellent restoration work Stanton Glass Studio is capable of. Contact us today to discuss how we can work with you to bring your glass back to life: 1.800.619.4882 or info@stantonglass.com, or visit our website: stantonglass.com. Request our new e-brochure when you contact us!