The difference between the designer and the artist.
There are many ways to design a stained glass window. Everyone approaches the design process differently. I have developed my specific design approach as the culmination of my 40+ years of experience. In my opinion there are two MAJOR questions to be considered when beginning a design commission.
What criteria do I have to work with? What is already established that needs to be either manipulated or assembled or incorporated?
What message needs to be conveyed to the viewer? How do I want the audience to react or how can I affect their emotions and what influence on environment can I crate?
Quite often the committee has input on the message, they either have an idea of what they would like or have absolutely no concept in mind what so ever. I sure many of you have worked with building committees…you know that could be a whole separate article!
Ninety percent of our work is ecclesiastical, so this approach is based on stained glass designing for churches, synagogues and places of worship. But the same principles would apply for any stained glass commission other than autonomous work.
But before we get deeper into those two major questions, let’s talk a little about the difference between a designer and an artist.
Our medium is rather unique because we must be both artists and designers to create a successful stained glass window. I don’t mean to interchange these terms casually, but there is a distinct difference between the two.
The designer must be utilitarian and a way that the artist is not. The designer must consult the client and need to know how to serve the interests and how to express the information at hand. Basically, how to arrange the ingredients. In other words, the designer works with given elements, mixes them with creativity and ultimately produces what the client needs.
Many years ago, one of my first big commissions was for a local Catholic church. Initially, the priest told me to design what I thought would look good. I thought…wow, this is a designers dream. It wasn’t long after I discovered this was a designer’s nightmare. I designed what I thought would look good.
I presented my design to the building committee of two priests, three nuns and the architect.
Because this was my first major commission, I put everything I have into the design; I had exposed all my vulnerabilities.
When I presented my designs, it was dead silence; no one said a word until I asked, “Well what do you think? The priest finally said, “Well, that’s not what we had in mind”!! Revelation, that’s when the difference between artist and designer became evident to me, I had put myself through an agonizing guessing game trying to figure out what they wanted.
The artist on the other hand, does not need to be utilitarian. The artist stands in front of a blank canvas with an end result in mind, without as much concern for the needs of the buyer or the tastes of the public but to stand apart from worldly life in order to critique it. The artist will interpret based on his or her own emotions and deliver what they believe to be the best personal statement.
Now, I say we must be both artists and designers because in this medium we have physical criteria or parameters we must work around: size, shape, installation, potential glare issues etc, etc, we’ll talk more about these things later and, yes, cost is often a parameter. These are tangible items we must be skilled enough to assemble in a tasteful way.
Additionally, we must use our artistic creativity in a way to illustrate and express a thoughtful meaning.
