Ancient Arts stained glass studio owner, Mark Schoem was contacted on May 7, 2008 regarding an act of senseless vandalism at St. Gertrude Catholic Church in Bell Gardens, California.

In the middle of the night someone had thrown the concrete base of a planter at the window depicting St. Cecilia.  This heavy projectile penetrated both the protective tempered glass on the outside and the stained glass itself.

We carefully extracted the stained glass window and brought it back to our studio in San Pedro.

A rubbing of the intact portion of the window was made and then the damaged and weakened areas were disassembled.  A careful attempt to match the missing and broken glass was made.

Most of the necessary replacement colors were not available locally or in our studio inventory.  Some of the glass was ordered from a New Jersey based distributor of antique glass from the Lamberts manufacturer in Germany.  For the other colors, samples from the damaged stained glass window were sent to another manufacturer in West Virginia.  They sent back samples of their own products for our selection.

After cutting all of the needed replacement pieces, the new glass was sent to our stained glass painter along with the broken pieces or bits of the broken pieces so the style of the originals could be copied as closely as possible.

The painted glass is expected momentarily and then re-assembly will begin.

Re-installation in St. Gertrude church should take place later in September.

 

Photo at left: Vandalized window before removal.

Photo below:
Close-up of vandalized area.