Martin Duffy

In1974 Martin Duffy began stained glass as a hobby. He augmented a beginners knowledge of glass art by trading in collectible architectural glass art, primarily buying and then selling antique stained and beveled glass windows, doing much of that through architectural antique auction houses, where significant collections could be curated, seen and studied.

In 1976, he bought antiques, mostly stained and beveled glass, for Carolee’s Combine of Atlanta. He then traded for a few years from his shops in Ely, Iowa.

Buying antique windows, particularly beveled glass, as cheaply as possible at first, Duffy expanded his knowledge as to what qualities made certain windows valuable, aesthetically correct, rare, or collectible, becoming more selective over time, paying more as needed, and his reputation as a credible purveyor grew.

The quality of available repair and restoration was poor, forcing Duffy to refine the skills needed to repair what was bought and sold, ultimately learning enough to emulate and even reproduce some of the high end period pieces he bought and sold. The requisite restoration of collectible period pieces spawned an informed appreciation of subtleties, motives and nuances of glass art, glass creation, of color grading, related glass use, and devices and developments in art glass fabrication. From 1976 to 1979, Duffy ran his shops, bought items for auction and trade, and briefly taught stained glass classes for the local Community College Community Education Program, occasionally lecturing community groups on Stained Glass, and its history.

In 1978 Duffy built his first stained glass dome, a 20 foot, 24 section, art nouveau style, grape-leaf themed dome, in midnight tones, constructing the behemoth frame in his Ely Iowa studio parking lot, drawing the attention of the local news outlets. That dome sold at Golden Movement in 1978 to Gilbert Robinson Corporation of Kansas City for use in its Houlihan Restaurant chain. It was for his domes that Duffy first achieved some creative recognition.

In 1979 he returned to Golden Movement Emporium of Los Angeles. Golden Movement was where his “professional” sojourn into glass began. That sojourn began after his unemployment benefits ran out, in 1976. He was introduced by a friend to Andy Thornton, the then warehouse foreman for Golden Movement. He told Andy he wanted to work with the stained glass. Andy hired him and primarily assigned him to wash and clean some six thousand antique windows, mostly English “lead lighting” with soap, a bucket, a brush, and a hose, for that year’s Golden Movement auction in El Segundo, CA. Novice hobbyist that he was, he ultimately learned alot at that auction. Enough to kickstart a 30 year-ish career.

After some diversions, Duffy landed in Seattle in late 1993, initially fixing and restoring yet more English “lead lighting” for a local vendor, building occasional custom windows, and moving into the Pioneer Square location in 1995. Most of the work shown here is from that period.

The Creations of Seattle Glassworks

The creations of Seattle Glassworks reflects familiarity with collectable glass, particularly of American Architectural Art Glass influenced by overlapping Victorian, Art Nouveau and Arts and Crafts periods. Knowledge acquired through trading collectible glass and requisite restoration experience, fostered a grasp of applicable stained glass design, nuance, subtleties components, materials, elements, color, etc… including glass beveling, notching and carving.

Duffy bought glass for, made, restored glass for, and participated in, high end Architectural Antique Auctions which included sophisticated collections of glass, Tiffany, La Farge, Handel, Wright, Mackintosh, and other collectible originals, along with some very savvy duplicates and reproductions. These rare collections afforded an ambitious enough young man a unique opportunity to learn, view, restore, and appreciate what had been and could be achieved, and what had been achieved over the past centuries, and especially during the Guilded Age of the past century. In that category, American Victorian Glass dominated!

SGI paired these accumulated glass skills and knowledge, with some very talented help, help gifted with unique and diverse ranges of skill and natural ability. Clean and precise drawings, renderings, and plans, combined with Martin Duffy’s glass experience, made the works of Seattle Glassworks possible.

The Place

The Washington Shoe Building occupies the corner of Jackson and Occidental in Seattle’s historic Pioneer Square and has since 1892, built as a manufacturing location and retail store for the Washington Shoe Company.

By the 1990’s, Pioneer Square and the Shoe Building had evolved into an art community. The Building hosted 50 plus live-work spaces for artists. The Shoe Building, with a concentrated 50 potential showings, packed in all manner of art patrons, dilettantes, and occasional party goers. It came to life especially on “First Thursday Art Walk”, when many, if not most, of the studios and galleries in Pioneer Square, including those in the Shoe Building opened their doors to the public. Studios prepped, offering wine, snacks, occasional entertainment, and all manner of finger foods to all comers. Festivities continued into the wee hours.

Artist residents included an assortment of talents, a metal shop run by Tony Kaplan, a theater run by Jenna Hoffman, featuring classic works, Checkhov, etc., as well as a variety of painters, metal workers, fetish fashion designers, stylists, photographers, and performance artists; In other words a limitless variety of resident pursuits. People lived in their units, all units maintained and constructed habitably, as only artists could. Typically clean, the varied units demonstrated limitless, creative ways crafts persons, artisans, and artists could aesthetically tame and shape hollowed out, tall, cold spaces, transforming bricks and beams into comfortable, imaginative living working studios and residence.

The collective efforts of the Washington Shoe Building were referenced as JEM (for John Edward (Eddie) Maurer) studios. Eddie Maurer was the Shoe Building “landlord”, and per one contemporaneous Seattle Weekly article on the Shoe Building, Eddie Maurer was, at that time, “The Godfather”; of the Seattle art scene. In the millennial year 2000, the building transitioned into “market level” artist’s lofts, and the artist residents had to leave.

See: https://www.seattleweekly.com/arts/the-last-shoe-drops/