Stained Glass Express - The Blog / our small business

A friend of mine on Facebook posted this a picture of sandblasted panel that is in his home. He said “do any of you remember the glass artist from Canaan, Me., Fred Tenenbaum? He did this panel." My response was, “I sure do, without Fred, Stained Glass Express would not exist." Time was, we owned a glass store in Winslow, Maine, named Oakes & Parkhurst Glass. It was a full-service glass shop offering commercial glazing, residential glazing, and auto glass. (O&P is now owned and operated by two of our children, Soo and Tobias.) I am not sure of the date but sometime in the early 1980s Fred came to us and asked if we could get stained glass. We brought in a small amount, made a small glass rack, and put it in the corner. As we expanded O&P Glass, we also put a small amount of stained glass and supplies for the stained glass artist/hobbyist in each of the other 5 locations (Belfast, Skowhegan, Farmington, Glenburn, and Manchester). Then in 1988 circumstances prompted us to buy a single location and make it good enough for all our customers to travel to. We bought and renovated a building in Waterville, Maine at 10 Railroad Square. By 2015, our son had bought O&P and the business we were doing in stained glass had totally outgrown that space. We moved to our current property in Manchester which is full floor to ceiling (it feels like!) with stained glass, fusible glass, specialty cabinet glass, tools of all the glass arts and trades, and so much more. All thanks to Fred's simple request 40 years ago! Fred was a very talented artist who did not only sandblasting but copper foil and lead came work. His studio was called Northern Lights Glass Studio. While writing this blog entry, I had not been having luck finding any more pictures of his work and was feeling disappointed. When I handed over the blog to be edited by our new Glass Academy Director, however, she recognized some of the names. (It is such a small world!) Within a few days I had been connected with Fred's widow, Eve. She sent me this photo of Fred's first ever piece, and I was moved to tears. Here is Fred's obituary, published on legacy.com by Central Maine on Jul. 31, 2018: "1941 - 2018 CANAAN - Fred Tenenbaum, 77, of Canaan, died peacefully at home surrounded by his family on July 27, 2018. Fred was born in St. Gallen, Switzerland, on May 14, 1941, and immigrated with his parents to Brooklyn, N.Y., as survivors of the Holocaust. He moved back to the land in Maine in 1970 where he spent nearly 50 years building a home with his wife, Eve, in Canaan. He was an accomplished stained glass artist, creating and restoring windows all over Maine and beyond as Northern Lights Stained Glass. He also taught at the Skowhegan high and technical schools for many years. He loved to garden and travel, he was a true crafts person and was loved dearly by all that knew him. Fred leaves his wife, Eve; daughters Marissa and Aliza, sons-in-law Rob and Mike; and four grandchildren." Edited on August 9, 2022 to add a photo of Fred's window at the Skowhegan Town Office and several other photos of his work, generously shared by Eve: Edited on October 24, 2022 to add more photos of Fred's beautiful work:

In one of the articles I read about Oceanside Glass (the new owners of Spectrum and Uroborus Glass) they mentioned that one of their first big breaks was getting to replicate the vintage tile for the Roman Pool at Hearst Castle. This interested me on several levels. One is that last year I saw the Roman Baths in Bath England. A fascinating place. Next was that in my mid 20s Patty Hearst was kidnapped. I was riveted to the story. Read the book and was totally on Patty’s side. Then the glass! How thrilling. The article compared this big break to Eric Lovel and Uroboros getting to recreate Tiffany glass for restoration. It also made me think of our early years in the glass business when we got the contract to make air control panels for a state funded program. A lot of good steady work. Certainly not as sexy as doing Tiffany or Hearst work but we were over the moon. I asked my husband how he was going to make this product that was specific in its requirements. “No idea. I never saw anything like it, I don’t think it exists, but it is a great idea”. So, he quizzed every sales person he could and found metal and a gasket that would work. The metal came from a place called Mason (still in business) and the metal number was E208. We named the air control panel an OPE208. The OP was from Oakes & Parkhurst Glass, the name of our business (also still in business). Many competitors tried to get in on that action but could never figure out where we were buying the ope208. Little did they know we were manufacturing them ourselves. They were inside panels, the gasket made them air tight. We could make them with acrylic when they were for older people who might not be able to lift them with glass. They were held on with clips that were hidden behind curtains. Easy on and easy off! We made thousands. Days, nights, weekends. One Thanksgiving afternoon our family helped so we would not miss a deadline since our employees (rightly so) wanted Thanksgiving off! But I digress! This is a picture of the Roman Pool at Hearst Castle. The tile patterns were inspired by mosaics found in the 5^th Century Mausoleum of Galla Placidia in Ravenna, Italy. Some also represent the marine monster themes that are in the ancient Roman baths. The tiles are 1” square and go ceiling to floor. These glass tiles, called smalti, are either mostly colored blue or orange or are clear with fused gold inside.