St. Stanislaus Catholic Church installation

St. Stanislaus Catholic Church in Chappell Hill TX

The installation for St. Stanislaus was yesterday and it went well. Installations always make me nervous because so many things can go wrong, not the least of which is me getting measurements wrong (hard to believe, I know, but sometimes it happens). Installations are the moment of truth in my work. Do they fit, do they get put in without incident, do they look good, are they happy?

We had a very good installer for years who did all the work himself or with a helper and Jon was also good at problem solving, coming up with ways to do unique installations. Unfortunately, several years ago he hit a downward spiral in his life which he could not recover from and he succumbed to a heart attack. I have been working with a new company, someone who had installed our work before on rare occasion. Fortunately, Randy agreed to do all our installations. You might not think that would be a hard thing to find, someone to do the installations, but I have been turned down by many people not wanting to take on the responsibility. Randy has a good sized company and so I don't always get the same crew. For St. Stanislaus, he sent two men with whom I was unacquainted which always turns up the stress factor for me, especially since the panels were 50 - 90 lbs each and five of them were in high window openings. On a ladder high window openings using cups (cups are like portable handles that attach to the surface of glass by means of a vacuum). They did the high windows first and it took two or so before I relaxed, confident that they would get the job done without mishap. I try to keep one eye on the installation in progress while appearing not to be watching them closely. No one likes to be under a microscope while they are working. I have to have faith in them so that they will work with confidence.

13 pieces of glass in 12 openings. The moment they set that last panel it was as if someone cut my strings. We have been working basically non-stop since late summer with one deadline after another looming and with a week of teaching in Austin in there too. All the fatigue just sort of settled in and I was glad Marc was driving us back to Houston.

Click to enlarge all the photos

inside

full view of the wall

Angel doors with Confirmation (transom)

Marriage (left) and Baptism (right)

Extreme Unction (last rites) (left) and Ordination (right)

Communion (left) and Reconciliation (confession) (right)

Tree Of Life (left) and Trinity (right)

Cry room