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Village Glass Works brings new spin to old art

Village Glass Works employs new techniques to diverse art.

By Emily Willroth

Published March 5, 2010

Village Glass Works, Columbia's oldest continuously running glass studio, offers a unique array of glass services and artistry. Jewelry, featuring modern images of peace signs and skulls, hangs in a glass case beneath a window filled with Picasso-esque stained glass sun catchers and classic mosaics, in an otherwise drab room in the historic Elkins home.

A doorway set beneath a 19th century-inspired stained glass window separates the room from a work area, full of rustic works in progress and tidbits of restored pieces. With projects exploring all avenues of glass artistry, Village Glass Works is as organic and sundry as the medium its artists manipulate.

From its start as a custom glass studio, the business has adapted to offer numerous retail services and diverse artwork. In addition to selling glasswork from local artists, creating custom pieces and restoring old ones, Village Glass Works offers classes in various aspects of glass art and sells the materials necessary to continue the trade.

"The business has evolved over the years," manager Susie Fiegel said. "Now service is our keystone."

Although the artists focus on modern glasswork techniques, such as copper foil soldered joints in stained glass works, older techniques are utilized in some pieces and many restoration projects. From small window hangings to the Missouri Theatre Grand Chandelier, restoration is one of the business's key services.

"Fixing things can be as gratifying as starting from scratch and creating something new and beautiful," Fiegel said.

Fiegel began her career in glasswork as a teenager, helping her father take on stained glass projects at Village Glasswork's sister company, Koonse Glass. New to the field, she jumped in headfirst, teaching herself the tools of the trade.

"I was 17," Fiegel said. "I didn't know what I didn't know, and I wasn't afraid of anything."

When original owners Tom Kemper and David Pickering created Village Glass Works and began offering more specialized stained glass services, the demand for decorative work left Koonse Glass.

Seventeen years and three owners later, Fiegel's father and co-owner of Koonse Glass, Tom Fiegel, bought Village Glass Works and employed Susie Fiegel and her daughter Molly Fiegel to run the store.

Eager to re-enter the world of glasswork, Susie Fiegel began revolutionizing the business by expanding the services and methods of glass manipulation it offered. In 1996, the Fiegels moved Village Glass Works to its location in the historic Elkins home at 315 N. Tenth Street.

Today, Fiegel considers the field to be in "a golden age of glass" with artists from every field looking at glass as a challenge and a new medium.

"People are pushing the boundaries of glass in every direction," Fiegel said.

Village Glass Works aims to keep up with the changing field, employing techniques such as glass blowing, kiln work and stained glass soldering. For Fiegel, it doesn't matter where the field of glasswork takes her; she continues to be entranced by the medium's reflective and translucent qualities.

"Once you fall in love with glass, it's all over," she said. "There's no going back."