Monica Wing Stained Glass

Years past, Monica Wing and I belonged to the same clay cooperative studio. We both moved on. While I still dabble in the dirt occasionally, I’m mostly painting. Monica has become a molto awesome stained glass artist.

She agreed to be interviewed about her processes, inspirations and kvetches with this truly apt statement:

I think artists are more like football players then anything else. Like when football players are interviewed after even the most dramatic game, and they never actually have anything to say and just sort of mutter a few stock phrases.

Yup, I feel just the exactly the same. Monica is a far more eloquent, interesting and amusing interviewee than I’d ever be.
1) When I met you, clay was your medium. Do you work in clay at all anymore? When you did, what did you most enjoy creating (images as well as objects) and why?

I don't do clay anymore, I don't have the work ethic for even one medium, much less two. I enjoyed throwing pots more than decorating them, but don't know why. I was also in a rut, doing the same thing over and over. I'm sure you're familiar with this -- ceramic people seem to get it the worst. How many times have you looked at the work of a semi-famous ceramic artist and thought ‘It's lovely, but looks really no different from what that same person was doing 20 years ago?’ At the same time, I'm thinking there were people like Edward Gorey, whose work I like a lot, even though his style never really changed or developed much. So I guess it's not so much a question of being in a rut, but whether or not you're happy to be there.

2) You’re working in glass now, doing stained glass. How did you move from clay to glass and why?

By chance, I rented a studio space allegedly to draw pen & ink and they were giving stained glass classes in the next room. My space was too cold to sit still and draw in, and the glass was bright and shiny. That was really about it.

3) What appeals to you about working in glass versus clay? Do you ever miss clay?

I don't miss clay,  because I didn't know where I was going with it anyway, at the time I quit. Glass is just beautiful to begin with, the main problem with it is trying to design something that actually adds attractiveness. If your raw material is already beautiful, and making anything with it is super labor intensive, you always have to wonder if you're really adding anything worth all that labor time, or would be better off just sticking the uncut glass sheets up against a window. 

4) Did you study art formally? Did you have a favorite or most path-changing teacher or mentor?

I majored in studio art at NYU. I did take a week-long glass painting course from a teacher in New Hampshire called Richard Millard, who was really good.

5) Where do you find inspiration? When does it hit you?

For me, stained glass is a medium that is so limited by scale, by my own technical limitations, by the subject matter that I actually want to draw, that I don't have to get as far as inspired -- just ‘well, that will use up the weird blue glass I bought too much of and will probably come out at least ok’ is generally as far as I have to get.

6) Is there a glass community like there is for clay?

Sort of -- there are lots of stained glass classes given at town adult ed programs and elsewhere, and some of those persist long enough to have a community around them. I'm in one now.
But there is no perceptible market for 2' by 2' panels depicting flying mice or giant insects in stained glass, and not much market for medium-sized art panels even if you leave out the bugs and rodents. So, you don't get the same kind of community as with Feet of Clay or Mudflat, where there are a lot of amateurs and/or semi-professionals who have significant sales.

7) Have you ever done blown glass or have any interest in that?

Only once, it turns out I'm afraid of fire.

8) Which stained glass artists really trip your trigger and why?

Judith Schaechter, the most technically brilliant stained glass artist I've ever seen or heard of. She is doing stuff with flash glass, pinpoint sandblasting and plating, that is like no-one else. I love this stuff even though I'm mostly put off by a lot of the subject matter.

9) What sort of art do you most enjoy looking at (genres, mediums, periods)?

I love medieval/early modern illustration, especially marginal illustrations in books, such as those posted by Discarding Images.

10) What size/dimensions do you work in?

Panels from bout 1' by 1' to about 2' by 2'

11) If you could work big, would you? Why/why not? How big would be ideal?

Yes, though scale is a huge problem for stained glass. It doesn't scale downwards, below a certain size the glass pieces become difficult to handle, and the painting technique I have available is too crude for tiny detail. But larger panels become heavy, awkward to display, riskier, and even less sellable. So I find that I'm sort of trapped in a middle range.

Painted stained glass panels are very labor-intensive, and despite lightboxes, you can't really see what they're going to look like until they are assembled, when it is too late. For me that is a disadvantage as it makes me excessively risk-averse. It's one thing to throw a soup tureen that comes out heinous and waste X amount of clay, time and electric charge. But if you spend all your free time for months on a stained glass panel, and it comes out heinous, it is way worse, and creates a great fear of screwing up. Fear is the enemy of progress.

Interested in purchasing or showing Monica's work? You may contact her at mrlwing at gmail dot com