The grace of stained glass

Autumn Elliot has been working on the windows of the Messiah Lutheran Church on 5th Avenue since June.

The eight windows she is creating will replace the eight windows in the main hall of the church. She is using traditional methods to create the new panes, which will have real stained glass instead of the plastic-covered windows currently installed in the church.

Vicke Schend has been spearheading the project, along with Allan Roush. Schend contacted Elliot a year and a half ago to ask her if she would take part in the project.

Each window is being sponsored by somebody and each is dedicated to a different person. Schend's is dedicated to the memory of her husband.   

The windows are being installed with thermal panes around each side of the stained glass, which will both help protect them and will be better for insulation.

Each window is made of three panes, each with a painted medallion depicting an image from the life of Jesus Christ. The windows are 81 inches tall when put together and around 21 inches wide. The bottom section of each is where the medallions are placed. The middle is a copy or representation of a window in the foyer of the church. The crosses and designs from the foyer windows are to be the inspiration of the middle panes of the windows. The top section is a continuation of the patterns from the other two sections.

The medallions are hand-painted by Lynchburg Stained Glass, which is based in Virginia.

"The details they paint in those are amazing," Elliot said. "That's kind of the main focus of the window - is the medallion."

Elliot said that she is trying to create the windows as they used to be created, before the plastic-covered glass imitations popular in the 1970s.

"I'm starting from scratch and using the traditional stained glass methods," Elliot said. She said she is following a traditional method of using solid lead and to solder the pieces of glass together.

She has been working with stained glass since 1999, when she began to learn the art from Michael J. Winters, who is the current mayor of Great Falls. Before he was the mayor, he worked with many of the churches in Great Falls and that is how Elliot got her start.

Then she went to art school in Minot, North Dakota, where she continued her practice of stained glass art and did her senior art show with her original pieces. She said she has created pieces for auctions and events in the area, but most of her work resides in Minot, where she also worked at a stained glass store.

Elliot puts as much time into her current project as she can in her attic workshop, but between working full-time at Radioshack and Hi-Line Audio Video, being an assistant volleyball coach at Montana State University-Northern and chasing her two sons around, she does not have a whole lot of time to dedicate to it.

"I really haven't got to work on it too much - only on my free time," Elliot said. "... I've been working on it during the weekends and any chance I get."

Despite her lack of time, she has completed half of the eight windows. She said each section of the three-section windows takes her about eight hours to make. She said she is hoping to finish the windows by Thanksgiving.

She said she enjoys the work when she gets the chance to do it.

Once the windows have been completed, Glassworks of Havre is going to install them.

"I'm enjoying the work," Elliot said. "I like everything about it; I like working with my hands. It's just me, up in the attic, working away. ... It's nothing fancy."