In the heyday of stained glass in American homes, the late 19th century, builders often copied patterns from the homes of nobility in England and Europe. Family crests were in the center of many of these windows, but they were meaningless to American customers, so the builders just improvised with generic shields or other heraldry.
When I am trying to imagine a design, I look to the historical and formal purposes of stained glass, and try to figure out what that means for us today. What is important to us, what belongs in the middle of our stained glass windows?
©2015 Eric Mauro
