Flieden German Church former Synagogue
In 2014, I was approached by Marie Ariel of Cambridge, Ma. to talk about stained glass windows for a church former synagogue in Flieden, Germany near Frankfurt, where she had visited to see where her father had been a child. He was bar mitzvahed in the synagogue in 1898. She met Pastor Holger Biehn, who was so moved to meet someone whose ancestor was a Jewish person who attended the former synagogue. He later reached out to her to ask if she could find an artist who could make stained glass windows to remember the Jewish history of the sanctuary. Marie found me through a friend on Martha’s Vineyard. My website was sent over to the committee and I was chosen as the person they wanted to use. It was a four year process to design, build, and install the six windows, all the while doing fundraising on both continents. The installation and dedication took place in September of 2019. Here are videos and images of the first visit to the church, the construction (four year process), and the dedication.
Flieden German Church former Synagogue
Jan Peters showing me an enormous kiln.
Church (left image) 2015, (above image) Synagogue 1925.
Barney Zeitz and Marie Ariel Richard Olson . Dedication Day September 22, 2019
First meeting, Thomas Fendert art committee chair, Barney Zeitz, artist, and Holger Biehn, pastor June 2015
Windows configuration 2015 first visit
I collaborated with Glasmalerei Peters of Paderborn, Germany to build the back four frames and install all the windows. Wilhelm and Jan Peters were wonderful people to deal with. I spent some time at the studio before the dedication in 2019 and again in April 2024. We look to collaborate in the future. Their studio is capable of work at any size and have 60+ employees that can help artists produce almost anything in various glass methods, both traditional and modern.
Construction of the windows started with a series of samples called German Studies. These were a combination of fused stained glass with metal oxide underpainting with laminated clear glass shapes on back. This created a shimmering effect where light ricochets through the glass body.
I cast all the glass in my studio on Martha’s Vineyard, using Bullseye glass with metal oxide underpainting. The Shalom and Frieden windows were laminated with Hxtal-1 epoxy onto quarter inch plate glass and installed into frames I welded from stainless steel. These frame are very complex, accepting the heavy weight of the glass into imbeded silicone. The four back windows with the prayers were shipped to Glasmalerei Peters to install in zinc frames they fabricated. I shipped the SHALOM and FRIEDEN Windows in a crate.
The German letters were each cut from a full thickness of special striker glass on a ring saw and placed with all the other colors as chips and powders (frit), then fired, and the blue turned to magenta, the color of the protestant church. before firing above, and after firing right
Crate in yard heading to Germany
Dedication September 22, 2019
Video by Elliott Vecchia: Dedication Day
Collaboration is important to me in all public projects, but in this one, there were several people who helped make the concept, design, and implementation successful. At first, I suggested using prayers running through the landscape, six prayers in six windows. I envisioned stars of David and crosses embedded in the landscape. In the design phase, I talked with Arthur Obemeyer who suggested using Aaron’s Priestly Prayer as the defining prayer that both Jews and Christians use in closing a service. Then, I talked with Rabbi Caryn Broitman who did not like the crosses and stars of David mixed as I tried in the first drawings. That is when Marie Ariel suggested making the two religions and languages separate but equal. She said put the German on the left and the Hebrew on the right. It worked perfectly. When entering the church, one sees the Hebrew on right reading from right to left towards the alter of the church and finishes with the word SHALOM. The German on left reads from left to right ending in the word FRIEDEN. It was a process that was very satisfying.
Aaron’s Priestly Prayer:
MAY THE LORD BLESS YOU AND KEEP YOU;
MAY THE LORD MAKE HIS FACE SHINE UPON YOU AND BE GRACIOUS TO YOU;
MAY THE LORD LIFT UP HIS COUNTENANCE UPON YOU AND GIVE YOU PEACE
