Stained Glass in Philadelphia: A Visit With Judith Schaechter in Sad City
Andrew Wagner
On Wednesday evening the New York Yankees beat the Philadelphia Phillies in the World Series (boo!). On Thursday I went to the City of Brotherly Love to visit with stained glass artist Judith Schaechter (below, Monument).
The city was quiet and morose in a way that I've only experienced one other time in San Francisco—the night the Giants fell to the Angels in the 2002 World Series. But Judith Schaechter is not one to let a baseball game bring her down and she greeted me at her door with all the good humor and joyful snark anyone who knows her might expect. I was visiting Judith in preparation for the Renwick Gallery Craft Invitational, an exhibition I'm helping to curate in D.C. that will open in 2011.
I've known Judith for a few years now and have always been a big fan of not only her intense, otherworldly, and often unsettling stained glass work but her uncanny ability to keep everyone around her smiling. Judith seems to have been able to keep from getting pigeon-holed into any particular genre which has helped keep her work continually fresh and exciting (below, Dream of the Fisherman's Wife).
Judith has also always been remarkably giving of her time. Yesterday she took me through some of her works in progress like the ones below...
and the one below...
And she even patiently walked a stained glass rookie through the intricate process of piecing together one of her windows. Judith explained that she could probably finish a window in two to three weeks if she wasn't so picky and didn't put everything together only to pull it all apart and start over. Below is a shot of boxes containing her various miscues labeled "crap," "rejects," and my favorite, "bulk failure."
Of course I'm still far from grasping the finer points of Judith's process but a visit to Schaechter-land is always inspiring. You may have lost the World Series Philadelphia, but you still have Judith Schaechter!
