Looped in by Brooke Manning

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I’m Justine, a stained glass artist currently living in Toronto, Ontario. Although I studied fine arts at OCAD University over a decade ago, I am largely self and family taught in the medium of stained glass. The hanging suncatcher pieces I create are one of a kind, never reproduced, and each embedded with meaning and symbolism that act as a visual marker for events or challenges in my life. In many ways I feel like my relationship to this medium has only just begun. I have always been attracted to the play of light through glass. The seemingly impermeable medium that can transform a room. I have vivid memories from my childhood being dragged along to church begrudgingly, completely zoning out in the pews while studying the large stained glass windows instead of listening to the sermons. As time went on nature became my church, the swaying of a willow tree, the buzzing of bugs, the way wilderness regenerates and thrives. This imagery is prominent and often referenced in my work. If stained glass has traditionally been a vessel for worship, then allow me to use it to worship the land and the lessons in it.

I began working in stained glass in 2015, when a life shift and depressive episode brought me back to living at home with my parents. My talented mother and younger brother had begun taking courses and had set up a studio in our garage where they passed their knowledge on to me. I spent a year recalibrating and keeping myself busy with the laborious medium, which fuelled a surge of purpose to create again. I am quite a soft person, so working in stained glass at times feels like a contrast to my nature. The medium itself can be harsh and hard on the body. Breaking glass, grinding loudly, soldering molten lead. There is a carefulness to working with glass that I’ve cultivated over the years. As someone who struggled with self harm in my youth, it feels like a marker in my healing to be able to handle these materials without feeling triggered.

I graduated OCADU with a BFA in 2011 majoring in drawing and painting but always felt called to tactile sculptural mediums. My thesis work was a body of wearable art pieces exploring my identity as someone with mixed Métis and European heritage. Identity, hybridity and cultural influence is often a point of evaluation in my practice. I revisited the power and embodiment of creating wearable art once again through stained glass in 2019 with a series entitled “Emotional Armour”. A collection of chest plates, masks and a video component of the pieces worn that I was fortunate to exhibit internationally in Iceland at the Hafnarborg Centre in 2020. These six wearable forms were designed as symbolic armour to carry some of the heavier physical and mental ailments I struggle with. A sharp and jagged shrouded jaw mask, paired with three swords against the chest to deflect the tension felt in the jaw as a result of past traumas. A fanning lavender shield that lays against the solar plexus to soothe the physical discomfort and tightness felt in my body due to anxiety. To name only a few…

Symbolic adornment both on the body and within the home has always attracted me and is a balm I will often return to in my art making. I believe that objects, both fabricated and natural, carry feeling and history and I feel most balanced when surrounded by my collections. I will surely always be a maximalist in my aesthetics and enjoy seeing my work in the hands and homes of others who feel similar. As an empathetic person who lives in a highly sensitive body I am often striving to find balance between caring for myself and those around me. Over the duration of the pandemic my glass practice slowed as I came into the temporary role of a caretaker for my niece. This autumn I intend to return to my craft wholeheartedly and am excited, anxious, and curious about what will come next. Living with clinical depression and anxiety both fuels and hinders my creative practice at times but making art is a non-negotiable for my life’s path. At 33 I am proud of the person I have worked hard to become and feel immense gratitude to my family, partner and friends who have always encouraged me to create authentically.

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