My earliest memory of being enamored with stained glass comes from my childhood home in California. The house was owned by my paternal grandfather, built in 1959, and the front door had a stained glass panel of a bird flying through cattails in an ocean sunset scene. The light would carry the rippling sunset hues down the entryway and across the hall.
My family and I lived there during my formative years, from early grade school through junior high. I can reconstruct the living room from memory. I have a vivid nostalgic recollection of sitting on the extremely brown couch (all furniture was extremely brown in the 1990’s) and watching the colorful refraction from the stained glass window as it moved across the carpet. I loved watching light move as a child. It’s a largely known fact that our generation had the best kid’s television, but watching light dance was a pretty popular pastime for me. It seems like no matter what era we grow up in, times will always be “simpler then” in regards to our collective upbringing.
I’m not sure I’d be able to recreate the stained glass panel itself from memory, but when I think of home, that’s always the first image that floats to the surface. Dancing motes traversing beams of faded orange light. It evokes that comfortable feeling of “home” that’s so elusive as we grow older and move from place to place.
Due to deeply regrettable circumstances, we moved out of that house in the early 2000’s when I was in high school and my grandfather chose to sell it. My family still lived in the area so it was easy to drive down the street from time to time and track the incessant “flips” that seemed common for that neighborhood. I moved to North Carolina in 2015 but whenever I’m back in town visiting family in SoCal I’ll take a tour of the area and it always leaves me with that specific heart ache.
From a cursory glance on Zillow today, the house is still various shades of beige. They removed the lemon tree from the front yard, for some unimaginable reason. When we lived there, neighbors had free rein to pick lemons from the tree whenever they wanted to prevent an abundant crop from going to waste. I’d like to believe the flippers removed the tree because it was old and rotten instead of the more likely scenario that sharing free food with the community wasn’t in fashion. The gorgeous climbing hibiscus bushes are also suspiciously missing, but there’s no accounting for taste. The front door was removed long ago, replaced by a more modern silhouette you might find at any Lowe’s hardware. I’m not the first person to complain about the atrocities of snuffing out beautiful unique fixtures in older homes, but I can’t imagine what I would pay for a door like that today. Like all ephemeral things, it’s a priceless memory now.
There are so many places that will only live on in our memories. Someday I might have the ability to recreate that stained glass panel from old pictures if I can find them, but I’m not in any hurry to try. What I’m able to achieve with the stained glass pieces I’m currently designing— it’s bringing that same feeling from my memories to life all around me. My home is filled with that same light, diffused through colorful glass, dancing along the floor and the walls, alive and ever-changing as the sun moves across the sky. The feeling of “home” comes back to me with every piece of glass art I hang in the windows here.
It’s the same feeling I’m hoping to bring others with my stained glass art. I’m still that stereotypical artist that’s flattered beyond human comprehension that anyone might want something I’ve made, but more than that, I’m honored by the opportunity to bring light to someone’s memories through my art. What a cosmically amazing thing. So thank you to anyone who has ever purchased a piece from me, big or small—it’s truly an honor.
And please, with love and kindness, if you have a stained glass panel in your door, keep it.
Sage House Glass 