A renowned glass artist in Mexico played a key role in the creation of a football field-sized church window in the U.S. The 81-year-old Narcissus Quagliata is the master of the glass-fusion technique that made the Kansas church’s colossal stained-glass artwork possible.
A stained-glass dome titled The Second Innocence, the Dream of Dionisyos, by Italian artist Narcissus Quagliata decorates the El Santuario Resort hotel in Valle de Bravo, Mexico, Wednesday, Oct. 25, 2023. Over the last five decades, Quagliata has created these stained-glass artworks for sacred spaces, private homes and public exhibitions, using a fusible glass technique.
In 2015, Carey was appointed lead artist for a colossal project, a stained-glass window the size of an American football field for a new church building in Leawood, Kansas. By 2017, “The Resurrection Window” would become the focal point in Resurrection’s sanctuary – the home base for the largest United Methodist congregation in the U.S.
It’s simple chemistry, Quagliata said. Each color possesses minerals which determine its cooling temperature, so even if blue and red could fuse inside an oven, the glass would break up in the end. Before long he moved to California, where the surge of the Arts and Crafts Movement convinced him to let go of his dreams of becoming a traditional painter like Picasso and embrace painting through stained-glass instead.In “The Resurrection Window,” Christ’s skin is yellow. Light-red patches frame the nose. Bright layers of purple, pink and green coat his eyes. The design was Carey’s, but the subtle fusion of colors was Quagliata’s work.“Fusing glass is spontaneous,” Quagliata said.