Melbourne’s Foosaner Art Museum has brightened up the short days of late autumn with a show that will put springtime into the art lover’s step. “Light Up the Arts” is an exhibition of stained-glass table lamps and photographs of architectural glass installations by Melbourne’s own Preston Studios.
Founded 40 years ago by partners Jerry Preston and John Emery, Preston Studios is a story of success in the arts.
Its founding was part serendipity and part fascination with the medium of glass, according to Emery, who recently visited the exhibition to recount the studio’s origin story.
In the early 1970s, Emery was a history student at Rollins College (he graduated in 1974) and Preston was a field director in the Red Cross.
“Jerry is the one who got infected with the glass disease first,” says Emery.
After the purchase of a Ronco bottle cutter, Preston began glass cutting as a hobby. With the wine bottles Emery brought home from his restaurant job, the two were soon busy making candle holders as Christmas presents for friends and relatives.
“That was how we got into glass,” Emery chuckles.
He traces the beginning of Preston Studios to 1976, when the duo opened a bank account under that name for their new business.
The short-lived era of bottle cutting, however, was over. Preston Studios was formed to create stained-glass table lamps of the type made famous by Tiffany Studios at the end of the 19th century. (It was, in fact, not Tiffany who designed the famous lamps but one of his designers, Clara Driscoll.) As with previous generations of Tiffany glass lovers, Preston and Emery were fascinated at first sight.
Today hobbyists can buy kits with everything they need to make their own reproduction Tiffany lamps. But Preston and Emery had no step-by-step guidelines to take them through the process of crafting a handmade glass shade. They learned the technique as they went.
Although Tiffany lamps are an undeniable influence on their own work, their aim was not to copy Tiffany Studios’ distinctive fin-de-siècle designs.
“We never did any reproductions,” says Emery. “We started with our own designs from the very beginning.”
Preston took their first successful project – a stained-glass shade mounted on an antique bronze vase – to Palm Beach, where he sold it for $2,500.
It would be nice to report that from there the only way was up, but that was not the case. After two years of production, Preston Studios’ sales could not keep up with its expenses.
“People didn’t understand what we doing,” explains Emery.
He says that potential buyers mistook their work for Tiffany, and soon lost interest in purchasing when it was explained to them that the lamps were Preston originals.
This financial setback inspired the artists to create a less labor-intensive “Birds of the World” series –small decorative panels intended for display in windows. They featured stained-glass depictions of birds surrounded by clear glass and finished with clear, beveled glass borders. A new marketing plan sent those appealing objects – along with a few lamps – to merchandising marts in Atlanta, Miami, New York and Dallas. Their salability helped the studio turn the corner from poverty to something a bit closer to prosperity.
Preston Studios got its long awaited “big break” – along with an additional creative focus – in 1982 when it was commissioned to create five decorative glass windows for Melbourne Beach’s new Aquarina Country Club. Other private commissions followed. To date Preston Studios has designed and hand-crafted decorative glass doors, side lights and transoms for 150 entryways on the Space Coast alone.
That does not include architectural projects in other parts of Florida and the U.S., nor does it account for works in semi-public spaces. The studio has created non-denominational stained-glass panels for hospital chapels in Orlando, St. Augustine and Houston, as well as the doors and windows of the narthex (entry hall) of Holy Trinity Episcopal Church in Melbourne.
Lining the gallery walls in chronological order are a number of framed photos of some of the studio’s architectural projects. Impressive as the original pieces may be in situ, these small approximations of their splendor are quickly passed by.
An early Preston stained-glass panel that was at one time installed in a home is on display at the gallery’s entrance. It is mounted in such a way that both sides of the panel are exposed to view but, alas, neither of them is lit. It takes some looking, but eventually the patchwork of amber and brown glass coalesces into a variation of Marcel Duchamp’s abstract “Nude Descending a Staircase.”
If the photos and the Duchamp panel don’t grab you, that might be because the show’s real attraction are the 22 stained-glass lamps that glow in genial groupings in the semi-darkened gallery. They feature dense floral compositions, koi fish in lily pods, and Asian-themed designs with dragons, lotus and the Chinese characters for long life, happiness and good health.
Several of Preston Studios’ shades are mounted on ornate bronze vases that Emery found on eBay. Reproduction Tiffany bronze bases that the studio purchases from wholesalers are also in the show. These display the sometimes-baroque art nouveau styling that we have come to expect of stained-glass lamps.
All the lamps in the exhibition are for sale. They range in price from $5,000-$20,000 depending on size and complexity. A price list is available at the museum.
Standing amidst the blazing glories of the studio’s incandescent wares, Emery wants his audience to know that “comparing Preston Studios with Tiffany Studios is like comparing apples and oranges.”
“Tiffany, at the height of his business, had over 300 people working for him,” says Emery.
By contrast, Preston Studios has a tiny staff. Emery creates the designs for everything the studio produces, from large architectural pieces to lampshades. Preston selects and cuts the individual pieces of glass for the design and solders them together. Every step of the process is done by hand.
In addition to the two principals, the studio uses the services of Cocoa Beach-based enameller Stanley Klopfenstine for designs that incorporate hand-painted or stenciled pieces of glass.
In addition to those three artists, Preston Studios employs a couple of studio assistants who help with the copper foiling and other time-consuming jobs.
Like Tiffany, Preston Studios uses the time-honored technique of edging its stained-glass components (the individual petals, leafs, butterfly wings, etc. that make up the finished design) in copper foil prior to soldering them together.
Unlike Tiffany, Preston counts among its subject matter flowers that Tiffany Studios never aspired to tackle, including daylilies, irises, angel’s trumpets, and tropical exotics like kapok tree blossoms.
“They did some roses,” admits Emery, but not the way we approach roses.”
You can see all of these flowers and more in the show, which occupies the west side of the Foosaner’s main gallery through Dec. 31.
