Bringing Legacy and New Stained-Glass Beauty to our Renovated Sanctuary – Part 2

As mentioned in Part 1 of this series on the stained-glass windows of the renovated Spirit of Hope sanctuary, the front feature wall will include a combination of three memorial windows from the former Knox-Metropolitan United Church building and six new ones, designed and created by Warren Mack, Spirit of Hope’s Director of Music. 

Here is a design drawing of the front feature wall of the renovated Spirit of Hope sanctuary, showing the position of three memorial windows from the former Knox-Metropolitan United Church building and six new, stained-glass windows. Drawing by Warren Mack

The fourth window, entitled Spirit of Hope, is in bright blues, yellows and reds. It incorporates the same flame element as our logo. This window will be located in the top right side of the wall. 

The fourth window, entitled Spirit of Hope, is in bright blues, yellows and reds. It incorporates the same flame element as our logo. This window will be located in the top right side of the wall.

Warren has produced a video showing how he soldered the pieces of glass that comprise this window. Click here to view the video. Based on a technique adopted in the late 1800s by Louis Comfort Tiffany of the famous Tiffany Glass Studios in New York, the cut edges of each piece are wrapped in a thin ribbon of copper foil. The wrapped pieces are then laid out over top of the paper drawing (called a “cartoon”) of the entire window and “tacked down” with solder to prevent them from moving when the full lead soldering is done. Before soldering, Warren cleans all the copper foil surfaces by brushing them with a chemical wash called a “flux.” Using a solder consisting of lead and tin, he begins to lay down the rounded beads of soldering in smooth and rounded line, following the glass joints.

It took a few hours to solder each side of this window. After completing the soldering, another chemical compound, called a “patina” is brushed over the top of the solder lines to make them black so that they do not distract from the image created by the glass. 

The Spirit of Affirmation window is tall and narrow and features the words “God Loves Everyone.” Warren thinks many will refer to is as The Rainbow Window because of its range of bright colours. This window will be placed in the lower right side, between the two Knox-Metropolitan Heritage of Faith windows on the right side.

The Spirit of Prayer window has four distinct elements: a dove, praying hands (based on the image created by 16th century German artist Albrecht Dürer), Indigenous praying and Muslim praying. This window will be placed near the top, to the right of the cross.

Warren says that the design concept and elements for the Spirit of Prayer window went through several transformations, more than for any of the other five “Spirit of” windows. “I liked the idea of the dove, representing the Holy Spirit, combined with the praying hands representing faith and then acknowledging others’ prayer traditions. There is a beam of light between the Holy Spirit (dove) and the praying hands – going both ways.”

Warren has produced a second video showing the process of cutting the glass pieces that comprise this window, a mixture of actual stained glass and clear glass that is painted using pebio paints. Click here to view the video. For the Prayer window, he paired red and amber and red and green and yellow. To cut the glass, he places the glass on the cartoon to see the lines through it. Using a silver pen and marks on the glass, drawing over the lines underneath. Cutting a straight line is not difficult, but the more curved the line is the harder it is. He must press very hard to score the glass. Then he gently taps the glass to extend the score through to the bottom of the glass. Or uses the notches in the glass cutter to snap smaller pieces off. He completes the cutting process by using a diamond grinder all four edges to straighten up the edges for foiling.

We look forward to showing you more of the windows being made along with Warren’s informative and interesting videos.