In preparation for our Connick exhibition --slated to open at the Boston University Art Gallery in 2003 and then to tour to three other venues-- The Connick Foundation organized a party on June 9, 2001 to gather reminiscences of the Studio.

As part of this process, we contacted thirteen former Studio workers and many members of workers' families. Thirty-four people, including former workers, family members of workers, historians and writers, attended the event, which was recorded on audio and video tape. We also received telephone calls and letters from eight others.

Below is a sample of recollections from a few of these folks. Each provides a glimpse of the vital Connick Studio community of dedicated craftsmen. See the photograph below.

Carl Paulson, who made Sandwich glass medallions for the Studio, 1932-1935 and 1938-1942, recalls

"Connick was pretty fussy. They [the medallions] had to be just right. So every day I listened to criticism of what I had made the day before and after about a year Mrs. Connick asked me, 'Carl, are you getting discouraged?' And I suppose I just said 'no,' because it was good learning. Then, all of a sudden, one week my stained glass medallions received no more criticism. Because they needed more help at 70 Hull Street [Newtonville, MA, where Paulson worked in the basement of Connick's house], so they sent Edgar Martin from the painting department [of the Studio] in Boston to help me and he got all the criticisms… Later you miss criticism; it's too easy to go downhill without knowing."

Anthony Accettullo, son of Joseph Accettullo, painter at the Studio, 1922-1978, relates

"My father spoke of the Studio as if they were members of his own family. "The most impressive thing, I think, was Connick. As a child, I think I may have been nine or ten years old when I went up there. It was so dirty, so dark, so dusty, but the love and the warmth of those men and going into that dark room and seeing one of those rose windows up in the light, it was just like another world." Anthony also remembered that the Studio had many parties (none of which, alas, he had attended) and how his father - a great gardener and cook - would bring fresh vegetables to the Studio and cook up big pots of sauce for co-workers. Anthony also brought a copy of the essay he had written in 1938 about Connick's seminal work, Adventures in Light and Color (Random House, NY, 1937). All the children of Studio workers were invited to submit essays for a competition. Anthony won third honorable mention; Orin Skinner's son Charles won first prize.

Anne Piandarian, daughter of Harald Nickelsen, cartoonist, 1924-1986, remembers

"… going up to the rickety old steps at the Studio. It was like going into another time and another world. ... I remember the big hall … a grandfather clock in the big hall in the middle, and seeing my father's sketches and my Uncle Ralf's [Nickelsen] sketches. My mother and father had met each other there ... and my mother's father had worked there also."   If readers of this newsletter have memories to share, please send them to Cathie Zusy, Connick Exhibition Curator, at 202 Hamilton Street, Cambridge, MA 02139, or to CathZusy@aol.com. These memories will be added to the archives of The Connick Foundation.

  From left to right: Tracy Rudd, Leo Cartwright, Troto Mainini, Walter Palchanis and Knute Svendsen working at the Studio. 
  Photograph by Don Bristol from The Connick Foundation collection.
 

Peter Cormack writes: In the last issue of Connick Windows (June 2001), I suggested that an important essay on ‘Stained and Painted Glass’ in Volume I of the 1915 book American Churches was written by Charles J. Connick, using the pseudonym ‘George Herbertson Charles’. As a result of researches in the Foundation’s archives, Connick’s authorship can now be confirmed unequivocally, since a somewhat abridged version of the same essay was subsequently published under his own name in The Ornamental Glass Bulletin (March 1922, Volume 16, No. 2, pp. 9-12). The 1915 text is therefore the earliest substantial article on stained glass by Connick which has so far been traced.

 

The Orin E. Skinner Annual Lecture will be held Wednesday November 14, 2001 at 6:30 pm in the Rabb Lecture Hall, Boston Public Library, Copley Square. Stained glass consultant Julie L. Sloan will lecture on the History of Stained Glass in America. This lecture is free and open to the public. Please address questions, comments and/or gifts to Marilyn B. Justice, President, at The Connick Foundation.

Julie L. Sloan is a stained glass consultant. She has worked in stained glass for 19 years and is the author of Conservation of Stained Glass in
America and many articles on stained glass history and conservation. She is also adjunct professor of historic preservation at Columbia University,
has taught at Williams College and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and has given seminars around the country. Her MS in historic preservation is
from Columbia University. Following Ms. Sloan's 18 years of research on the leaded glass of Frank Lloyd Wright she curated an exhibition and
wrote two major books on the subject, Light Screens: The Complete Leaded Glass Windows of Frank Lloyd Wright and Light Screens: The Leaded
Glass of Frank Lloyd Wright (exhibition catalog), both published by Rizzoli International (2000). Julie Sloan is currently working on books on the
stained glass of artist John La Farge and of the Prairie School, in addition to consulting on restoration of significant stained glass windows around
the country, including Princeton University and Trinity Church, Boston.
 

	Connick Windows "I want to make beautiful interiors for both churches and souls I want...[all people] to hear my windows singing..." Charles J. Connick
Saint Cecilia (1920). Center panel of gallery window at St. Catherine of Sienna Church Norwood, Massachusetts