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Several afternoons a week, a back room in the Bowie Senior Center is filled with an incessant grinding. It's the sound of both frustration and accomplishment for the senior citizens at work there, as they shape small pieces of colored glass into window hangings.
The class in how to craft stained glass is offered at the center as part of Prince George's Community College's SAGE program — Seasoned Adults Growing Through Education — for seniors 60 and older.
"It's amazing how many people stay with the class," said Carol Boyette, who has taught the class for six years. "Everybody does their own thing and some people have done some really nice stuff."
First-timers in the class say working with stained glass is harder than they thought it would be.
"The first day I cut myself three times, but I've stopped that now," said Eleanor Gerber of Bowie as she worked on a tulip design of red and green glass.
Gerber and Ann Mercanti of Bowie have been in the class only a few weeks, whereas others, who worked briskly around them in the class Monday afternoon, have been in the class since it began.
They sit at a table together with pliers, stencils and sheets of glass spread out before them, pasting the patterns on the glass and scoring it with a handheld cutter so it will easily break. Once the shapes are cut out, grinders are used on the edges to achieve a precise fit.
"Grinding is the hardest part," Mercanti said. "We've learned a little patience if nothing else."
With so many stained glass veterans in the class it's always easy to get help when a piece isn't turning out correctly, she added.
"It's a big club here and we all help each other," said Ivan Place of Upper Marlboro, who has made more than 100 pieces since he started taking the introduction class. Place is one of the few in the class who enters his original designs into local glass shows, Boyette said.
Soldering together a circular portrait of Martin Luther King Jr., Place said he enjoys making stained glass because it is soothing and requires concentration.
It also requires an investment to get started.
All the necessary tools — including a grinder and soldering iron — cost roughly $200, Boyette said, plus glass, which ranges from $6 to $12 per 12-by-12-inch sheet. First-time students can get away with purchasing about $100 worth of the equipment and borrowing the rest from the workshop, Mercanti said. The class itself costs $50 per semester plus a $15 lab fee.
Anne Gallina of Bowie said she started in the class four years ago and was hooked. She now owns all the equipment she needs to make stained glass at home and sells commissioned pieces.
"It's fun, but it's a hobby that if you do your nails every week — don't do it," said Gallina of the toll soldering and grinding can take, as she cut out the pattern for an angel window hanging.
With several years of practice, several of the longtime students have sold their artwork, but that's not what Boyette is trying to teach in class, she said.
"The goal is to have fun," she said. "The biggest benefit [of making stained glass] is you feel this sense of accomplishment when you finish a piece."
E-mail Andrea Noble at anoble@gazette.net.
