At a class in New Jersey, an art form thousands of years old is being kept alive with tools and techniques that have barely changed over the centuries. A News 12 feature dropped in on Rainbow Art Class, where beginners and hobbyists come to learn the craft of stained glass from scratch and leave with a finished piece of their own.
A traditional stained glass project, the instructor explained, takes about two days, or roughly 12 hours of instruction. By the end of the class, students go home with a stained glass panel that they have created themselves, having learned the steps of the process under guidance rather than simply watching someone else do the work.
The studio is set up so that anyone can walk in and start making something. It was described as being sort of like a Home Depot for art glass, where whatever a person wants to create, the staff have all the raw materials and all the tools they will need on hand, removing the barrier of having to buy specialized equipment before getting started.
Much of the work comes down to cutting and shaping the glass. Using mosaic clippers, a piece of glass is placed between two small wheels and then clipped down to size. The tools may look simple, but they are the foundation of a craft in which precise cuts determine how cleanly the finished pieces fit together in a design.
One material that draws particular attention is dichroic glass, which has a striking shine and adds real pop to a piece. The technique involves building on a clear piece of glass, then cutting out the other pieces and placing them on top, layer by layer, so that the final panel is assembled in stages rather than from a single sheet.
For the instructor, part of the appeal is that this is an ancient art that has not changed in centuries. With a background in liturgical restoration, the instructor recalled taking apart old windows and wondering whose hands had created them, noting that the same technique is being used today, essentially a hundred years apart, with little difference.
The craft does require patience. It takes a little while and some practice to manage certain steps, the instructor said, but anyone who sticks with it can go on to make finished, beautiful pieces of art. The class offers a way for newcomers to try their hand at a tradition that has outlasted countless changes in the world around it.