Tom Green, Stained-glass Artist

Shining a Light in Haliburton County

Haliburton stained-glass artist Tom Green reflects on 40 years spent practicing his art by saying, “It’s really all I’ve ever done.”

His creative path had a very different beginning. After high school, he studied Fine Art in Kingston at St. Lawrence College and Queen’s University, in the disciplines of photography and printmaking.

Back at home in Niagara Falls, he responded to an ad – two stained glass artists from Germany had accepted commissions in several local restaurants and they required a photographer to catalogue the work in their studio.

“While I was waiting around to photograph some pieces, I picked up a cutter and began fiddling around with discarded bits of glass. That led to basic instruction from the artists, and I fell in love with the art form,” Green explains.

When their commissions were finished, the artists disbanded – Tom picked up a glass cutter which was lying on an abandoned work table, slipped it into his pocket and walked away; away from the studio and from his profession as a photographer, and towards a life which led him in a new artistic direction and eventually a couple of hundred miles north.

A Metis-First Nation, Green does not define himself as an indigenous artist. “I live the life, practice what I preach – but it’s what I am, not who I am.” He adds “I don’t sign any of my work. My gift is from The Creator, and it is his to sign.”

Green’s work features the beauty of the world which surrounds him: trees, herons and loons feature prominently but not exclusively in his work, which is for sale in his shop at Glass Eagle Studios, located on his property. It can also be found at the Ethel Curry Gallery in Haliburton Village and at the Eclipse Art Gallery at Deerhurst Resort in Huntsville.

Commission work figures prominently in his catalogue; currently he is two 8-foot windows away from completion of a four-year 35-window project at a synagogue in Markham. “I do all the work here at my studio, and when I have a couple of windows completed, we load them up and drive them down to Markham for installation.”

Besides working full time as a stained-glass artist, Green occupies his time in his gardens, growing his own herbs and vegetables from his own seeds. The gardens have also become a project to help local youth; co-op students work in the gardens, learning everything from planting and cultivating to harvesting the crops, and gathering and preparing the seeds for the next year.

Visitors to the property often purchase produce grown there, and 10% of all sales goes back into the community to help local youth.

The students also work in the studio – an old schoolhouse circa 1871, of course – where they can explore their own creativity and receive instruction in art and in life, which Green hopes will provide valuable tools as they choose their own paths.

Green reflects on the art forms he knows best: “There is a lot of similarity between photography and stained glass. Both are a study in light – without light neither would be possible.”

You are invited to visit – come for the studio, stay for the gardens, or vice versa – at 2801 Blairhampton Road, Minden. The studio is open year ‘round, by chance – “if we’re here we are open”, he says.

By Belinda Wilson