Marilyn Peacock of Abingdon, Va. created a stained glass window for a fire hall in Brooklyn, New York.
*** This story was published December 4, 2008 in the Bristol Herald Courier. ***
ABINGDON, Va. ? Marilyn Peacock had only a painting to light her inspiration. But, using a wealth of experience as a stained glass artist, Peacock has now skillfully created a window's worth of memories for a fire hall in the Brooklyn section of New York City. That fire hall was torn down about three years ago, Peacock said.
Recently, Peacock was commissioned to construct a likeness of a long-gone fire hall building - a four-foot-by-five-foot window - using stained glass. Using 450 pieces of stained glass plus a painting of the now-demolished fire hall as a model, Peacock created the building, complete with a chain-link fence and even graffiti on the long-gone structure.
"They wanted the graffiti," Peacock said. "They wanted everything on there but the air-conditioner." Gladly, Peacock left off that unsightly air-conditioning window unit.
How did she get this job?
"One of the firemen found me on the Internet a few years ago and had me do a small piece," said Peacock, who operates The Glass Peacock, a stained glass supply shop, artist's studio and classroom on Abingdon's West Main Street. "So when they had the idea to do this, they called me again."
Next, it took Peacock, of Marion, Va., about five weeks to complete the window, she said. "It was challenging to figure out how to come up with designs," Peacock said. "It has a lot of painted items that then had to be fused."
In business at The Glass Peacock since 1990, Peacock has been working with stained glass for more than 30 years. Often, she works on windows for churches and homes.
"I typically prefer doing flowers," Peacock said. "I do florals a lot. And this is so oppposite of that. It's so different than what I normally make."
Yet now, with all the hours this project has required, many more than Peacock had figured, Peacock's fire hall masterpiece has become a labor of love, she said.
Peacock and her husband, Gary, have made plans to personally deliver the piece to Brooklyn.
"They've built a new fire hall, and this one will go in it," Peacock said. "We're not charging for the delivery. We're counting it as a getaway.
