Salem Stained Glass in East Bend, N.C., and world-renowned cold glass artist Jon Kuhn, based in Winston-Salem, N.C., have announced an alliance for the integration of Kuhn’s radiant work into stained glass windows.

The announcement comes in advance of the Stained Glass Association of America’s quarterly convention June 18-20 in Oklahoma City, during which time the two companies will reveal the first of their new Kuhn Sacred Glass windows. After which the Kuhn Sacred Glass will be available immediately to stained glass studios worldwide through Salem Stained Glass.

“We are so ready for this,” says Al Priest co-owner and president of Salem. “We had been thinking about ways to break out of the price-driven, competitive bid mindset that limits so many stained glass studios when Jon Kuhn first approached us. Jon’s reputation is international, and he gets a price for his art in keeping with that reputation, so that’s nothing but good for the stained glass business.” Priest continues, “In the long run, adding Jon Kuhn’s brilliant work to stained glass windows may prove to be as ground-breaking to our industry as John La Farge’s invention of opalescent glass.”

“I am stunned with this possibility,” says Kuhn. “There’s no doubt that the potential market is huge. But the challenge of marrying my work to stained glass is even more important to me, because it creates a fresh artistic direction. That’s what my art is all about,” he reflected. “I constantly drive myself toward new ways of expressing my vision in glass. It’s a very spiritual vision, I might add, which I am happy that Al and Brad [Brown, Salem's co-owner] have embraced.”

The alliance’s first commission was a freestanding, 30-inch-high, clear crystal cross with 10 thousand facets of lead crystal, designed for a rather traditional church sanctuary. Another collaboration Kuhn has done recently led directly to the invention of the tiny bits of crystal that he is introducing to stained glass windows: the $1.2 million Kuhn-Bösendorfer art case piano.

“I had been thinking about designing an art case piano for several years,” he says. “Bösendorfer is ‘old school’ in the same way that I am. It doesn’t matter how long it takes to make their pianos; they just have to be perfect. And that’s the same kind of long-term, qualitative approach I’ve discovered at Salem Stained Glass. I fully appreciate the fact that stained glass of the quality I’ve seen at Salem can last for centuries. That’s what I’m after,” he enthused. “I want my work to last forever.”

“The sky’s the limit on projects that marry Salem’s stained glass art with Kuhn’s amazing cold glass,” says Brown. “It could be as simple as individual stained glass window panes arranged in the shape of a religious symbol or a complex stand-alone Kuhn work. We can shadowbox them in walls, inlay them into church pews — or even Bösendorfer pianos. There really is no end to the possibilities.”

Kuhn agrees.

“We fully expect our alliance to take wing all over the world.”

CLICK HERE to read DG magazine’s exclusive interview with Jon Kuhn.