Inside Carl Trimble’s Stained Glass Studio

One of my favorite things about visiting different churches is gazing at the sunlight shining through their beautiful stained glass windows. What an incredible gift it is to be a stained glass artist and to tell stories with bits of light and colored magic!  Look at this amazing piece!

I’ve only dabbled in the glass + solder world, but I learned enough to know enough to know it’s terribly difficult to master. That made me especially thrilled to have the unique opportunity to visit and tour one of the oldest and most regarded stained glass studios in our area.

Trimble Studios-Stained Glass & Art Glass Studio is humbly located in an industrial park, tucked in without signage and nothing to draw attention to the amazing works of art in-progress that are inside.

Carl Trimble began his career journey as a self-taught “enthusiast” in 1967. After a stint as an apprentice, he opened his studio doors in 1977 working full-time on his mastery. He later returned to school to earn his graduate degree in Fine Arts and share his knowledge as a teacher and mentor.

(^Just a random piece of art leaning against a wall^)

Carl immerses himself in both commercial and personal projects, styled in everything from art nouveau to post modern. His installations can be found as far away as New Jersey, but his notoriety literally spans the globe. He offers no retail, but welcomes custom works of art for private residences, large churches, corporations like TXU, the American Airlines museum and country clubs and even the Mansion on Turtle Creek — to the small projects to finish a piece from a late family member or repair your favorite broken sun catcher. You can view his portfolio here.

His love of the art is infectious and I can certainly relate to his philosophy on tool acquisition: He makes his own tools, buys others without knowing what to use them for, and he’s never bought a tool that hasn’t paid for itself the first time he used it! (Okay, maybe we part ways on the last bit. I’m guilty of gadget hoarding.) Check out this 1930’s paint shaker he uses to mix his epoxy!

The construction process is so interesting. Glass is laid out on the table like a puzzle and a paper rubbing is made of it with the pieces numbered.

Then three-bladed scissors are used to cut the paper apart to make the pattern pieces. A project like this fleur de lis would take about a day and a half to put together.

A little further back in the shop, you can’t help but notice the large project for the Hare Krishna center’s glass domes.

This is a wooden replica covered in cardboard that they use to help create the pattern and determine piece placement.

Carl Trimble’s work is amazing. We were really lucky to get an inside view of how he creates these incredible works of art. Seeing first hand how painstaking and exact the process is, made me appreciate the stained glass church window that I have in my office — even though it wasn’t made by Carl. I love thinking about the history that this window has been a backdrop to and that it continues to bring beauty to our wall long after the church was demolished!

Thank you Carl for the behind the scenes tour!