Here we have those stained glass panels I made for Community Covenant Church and delivered this last weekend. They are the last three of the series of eight that I started a few years ago. Glass is difficult to photograph, and I do a particularly lousy job of it, so these aren't the best representations, but you'll get the gist. You can double click to enlarge, as usual.The first one represents the story of the prodigal son. Craig and I had talked about doing a treatment of the story of Jesus healing the leper, and as I was sketching away, the two figures began to remind me of the Rembrandt painting (a print of which hangs in Craig's office) of the story of the prodigal son. I emailed Craig to find out if I could change the subject, and he agreed. So, the position of the father and son in the glass panel is taken from the position of the two figures in the famous painting. Therefore, in the lower right corner of the panel, I've etched "after Rembrandt" (invisible in the photo).
The next one is a window about worship. If you've been in the lobby of the church, you may have seen the four, framed charcoal drawings of hands in various positions of prayer. They were commissioned by Craig for a sermon series, and my son, Dylan, drew them. I stole the image of one of the drawings and incorporated it into the design for this panel. I was trying to suggest an upward flow of thoughts, words (little colored squares) and music (black diamonds with staff sticks). I also chose to use all colors in the spectrum to indicate the full range of people, styles and reasons involved in worship.
The third, and last, is an image representing the hand of Jesus grasping the hand of Peter as Peter is sinking into the Sea of Galilee. The source of this image is taken from a series of four black and white paintings done, all representations of hands, that were painted in front of the congregation (one each week) during a series of messages by Craig. This particular image has been comforting to various people in the congregation at times of struggle and hardship. So, Craig thought that having a representation of it in glass would be appropriate.
And that's it. I hope that they will enhance the community life of the people of CCC for many years.
