Stained-glass windows help artists, viewers connect with faith

READSBORO, Vt. (CNS) - It's not always easy for artist Debora Coombs to step back and look at her work, especially if she is working on a 25-foot-high drawing that she is going to translate into a stained-glass cathedral window.

So she works in sections, and sometimes she gets a look at the big picture from a loft above her studio. The British-born stained-glass artist works in a studio that's about 20 feet by 30 feet, a former garage her husband converted for her work after they moved to the rural area of Readsboro about 10 years ago. She was commissioned to create more than 1,000 feet of stained-glass art for St. Mary Cathedral in Portland, Ore. She spent three and a half years working on the 16 windows depicting the sacraments and the saints and blesseds of the Americas. The stained glass was fabricated at Cummings Studios in North Adams, Mass., with Coombs executing all glass painting and artwork. Coombs, 49, is deliberate about each color of glass she chooses, about each stroke she paints on the glass because she is not only creating a picture out of glass and paint, she is transforming the atmosphere inside the building where her stained-glass creation will be placed. Stained glass is a complex medium, one that is difficult to work with successfully because of the technical and practical requirements. The heavy glass has to be securely supported, for instance, and the transparency has to be just right. But it's the medium Coombs favors. "I love it. It's a beautiful medium to work in, if challenging," she said. Her research on the sacraments, saints and blesseds to be depicted in glass had a profound effect on the mother of two teenagers who was raised Anglican in England. Windows for the cathedral are a visual means of bringing together the different peoples and cultures that make up the country. Those depicted include St. Peter Claver, St. John Neumann, St. Rose of Lima, Blessed Damien de Veuster, Blessed Junipero Serra and Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha. In her quest to learn about Blessed Kateri, Coombs attended two Native American conferences where she asked participants for advice. "I had so much invisible support," she told The Vermont Catholic Tribune, the Catholic newspaper of the Diocese of Burlington. "People were praying from all over." But it was an elderly Sioux man who gave her the profound advice that had a deep impact on her life: "You pray." "In my ignorance, I said, 'How?'" Coombs recalled. "He said to pray the Indian way. You give thanks." From that day on she woke up every day and gave thanks for everything she had: her husband, children, hands, eyes, intelligence, opportunities, sunshine. "If you spend time thanking God for what you have, the thankfulness vastly outweighs the difficulties," she said. Noting that medieval stained-glass windows were created "to tell the Bible in pictures," Coombs said she hopes to not only communicate a story but to prompt reflection. "I don't have authority to teach about the faith, but I can ... offer something that allows the viewers the opportunity to reflect and connect with their own faith," she said. The windows are "like the labyrinth, a tool for worship and spiritual connection." That's a connection that Hiemer and Co. Stained-Glass Studio in Clifton, N.J., has been making for 75 years. For four generations, the company has been creating and restoring windows depicting saints, scenes from the Bible and abstract images of faith. Two-thirds of the churches in the Paterson Diocese, including the bishop's residence in Paterson and many of the high school and hospital chapels in the diocese, have had work done by the studio. Stained glass and service to the church began in the Hiemer family with Georg Hiemer's work throughout Europe in the 1890s and early 1900s. Georg Hiemer passed down the trade to his son, Edward, who made a name for himself by making stained glass in Japan, Germany, the Philippines and Mexico. Hiemer and Co. was founded in 1931 in Ohio by Edward and Georg Hiemer and was eventually relocated to the East Coast. Edward Hiemer's son, Gerhard, was president of the studio from 1968 to 1997 and taught his four daughters about stained glass. Now retired in Florida, Gerhard still offers his expertise whenever asked. "His memory is better than our computer," said Judith Hiemer Van Wie with a laugh. She is a great-granddaughter of Georg Hiemer and the oldest of Gerhard's daughters. She currently is president of the studio and runs the company with her husband, James Van Wie. In addition to working in U.S. parishes, the studio has created stained-glass windows for churches around the world, including the Virgin Islands, Alaska and India. All told, the company has created stained-glass projects for more than 1,100 churches and has carried out more than 10,000 restoration projects. "It's interesting as a stained-glass artist to create and continue the history of the faith," said Hiemer Van Wie, a parishioner of St. Brendan Parish in Clifton. "It's almost like the tribes that pass along their story. Stained glass is a different liturgical way in passing along the story." While it is still too soon to know whether Hiemer Van Wie will pass the tradition to her daughters, now ages 2 and 5, she knows that stained glass will forever be a part of her. "There are many trials and tribulations that small businesses face," she told The Beacon, newspaper of the Diocese of Paterson. "But it's pretty exciting to be here with 75 years and that kind of history. ... This studio is home for me." - - - Contributing to this story was Cecile San Agustin in Paterson.

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This story was made available to Catholic Online by permission of The Vermont Catholic Tribune (www.vermontcatholic.org), official newspaper of the Diocese of Burlington, Vt.