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  • 5 weeks ago
When Charles J. Connick Associates closed their doors in 1986, they left a legacy of 15,000 stained glass windows in more than 5000 churches, libraries and other public buildings. Founded on the principles of a medieval craft guild, this Boston studio was closely allied with Ralph Adams Cram, Dean of the Gothic revival in American architecture, and in it's heyday, between 1920 and 1950, employed and trained scores of artisans. The Last Window, narrated by Jonathan Fairbanks, Curator of American Decorative Arts Museum of Fine Arts Boston, follows the studio's final commission from design to installation; the artisans' commentary establishes the historical, aesthetic, and social context in which they work. Many examples of Connick windows are included, taking the film outside the studio to show the contrast between the workers' relationship with the art and that of the patrons and users.
Transcript
00:01It's under colorist, and there again, when you say colorist, there's quite a bit involved in it because, as I
00:10say, there's so many things that we have to watch out for in the making of a window.
00:17For instance, this is the design for this window in Brookline, and this is a section that you can see
00:23right there, which I'm looking for as glass for the buildings.
00:28The colorist, as a general rule, your background colors are your deep blues and your reds, and the corner is
00:35also noted for its blues.
00:38And the way this is a north window, you more or less, it's probably a little bit warmer sketch than
00:43you ordinarily would see for an east window, which is a morning light, or a west window, and a southwest
00:50window, which is an afternoon light.
00:54Now, see, this is the roof of this building, this color that I want to put in.
01:07The funny thing about cutting, that sometimes if you don't have confidence, the glass seems to know it.
01:31I'm going to take the roof edges off because the painter paints because he cut a lot of pistols off
01:40his brush with the sharp edges.
01:50I want to see.
01:51I want to see.
01:51That would be the roof.
01:54I want to see.
01:56This is the side of the building now.
01:59I generally try to put the darker light on the back so that the lightness in the front will bring
02:04you more or less into the window.
02:05Into it.
02:07…
02:34I know.
02:39The details of the design are painted on the glass with ferric oxide in a gum arabic or damar varnish
02:47base.
02:48Ferric oxide is also used for shading and as a density against which stencils can be brushed.
02:55Then we start with a heavier mixture like that.
03:06And we use a badger, this long, long-haired brush that comes from the animal, from the badger animal.
03:18So now, that's it. That's it. That's it. Everything. And we can, by adding more water to it, we can
03:27make it thinner.
03:33And we can also give it a different texture.
03:37We can, if we wanted to, we can make streaks.
03:40If that happens to be pleasing to us for whatever else we may want to do, we can do things
03:45like that.
03:45We can stipple it. That gives it another texture.
03:49And when this is dry, one can also, aside from stenciling, one can rub it with the palm of the
03:56hand, you know, like that.
03:59When this is dry, not before.
04:01It does not have to be sleeved in detail, what the cartoonists did.
04:06We are fortunate in that we have been able, in this story at least since the beginning, to follow our
04:16own pens.
04:18So there's a little bit of the idea of, let freedom reign, not develop into slavish copyists, which is the
04:27bade of many people.
04:29But the main truth is, have we liked what we did over these years?
04:38And I have only one ringing answer, and that is yes, indeed.
04:43Absolutely.
04:44All right.
04:44All right, You can flip it over here.
04:44Okay.
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