Just glancing at Brays Crossing from the freeway a person cannot help but feel lighter on their feet, and better about the world. It was an honor to be able to be part of this project for so many reasons. I have long been interested in New Hope Housing.

Glassman Shoemake Maldonado Architects allowed me the perfect stage to harness the light and thereby design a stained glass image that could remain active both day and night, “come rain and come shine”.

First and foremost the stained glass was designed to be a tool to throw color and rainbows on the walls of the front office and entryway. A space - dancing with color and glints of prismatic activity - connects us to the natural world. These effects ebb and flow depending on the weather, the time of day and the season. It serves to remind us that nothing stays the same.

Each piece of glass was not only appointed for its color, but also for its properties. Juxtaposing transparent and opaque textured glass, bevels, old prisms, and jewels allows different parts of the window to push the color into the space, and other areas to be seen at night as a result of the interior light reflecting off opaque glass.

Several Depression Glass plates were used throughout the image. For me they are the human symbol. “Whose cupboards did they live in? Did they once serve collard greens or cannelloni, a snack or a feast?” I think about the diversity in the many hands that once handled them. And always… in the back of my mind it occurs to me: “if plates could talk…the stories they could tell!”

The plates, like the prisms and glass hat pins in the window, share anonymity. This ambiguity makes them part of ‘the collective’ that each of us share.

Kim Clark Renteria