It’s THE place to go if you're looking for old door knobs or
bathtubs. Green-bronzed horses or cast-iron radiators. Arches and architectural
leftovers from the insides of abandoned churches. Stained glass windows line
one whole wall, right behind rows and rows of sinks. And just across the aisle,
about a hundred toilets line up like frosty choristers in this open cathedral
of commodes.
G.K. Chesterton once said, “A paradox is a truth standing on
its head waving its legs to attract attention.” There I stood, red-nosed, hands
in my pockets and ears tingling from the cold, juxtaposed with these
unlikely neighbors paradoxically waiting to be rescued once again and taken to
some warmer place. Like Harry Potter, I had conjured up these magical foreign gadgets, this bizarre metal and glass
menagerie mutely waving their legs at me.
I wandered the aisles, but kept returning to the stained glass lined up against
the walls. These warehouse owners are far too savvy to have any Tiffany lurking
around, I was quite sure, but some of them looked so lovely lounging there in
ornate frames, dusty and smudged, but still intact. How can sand, salt and ash create
something as beautiful as stained glass?
Eight hundred
years earlier, three stained glass masterpieces nearly met the rubbish heap.
While most of Chartres Cathedral burned in 1194, the western wall was saved. Salvaged. One
window hung there in the smoke like a giant jewel-encrusted brooch. It’s called
“The Blue Virgin Window” because of the rich blues against a ruby-red
background. Most early stained glass artists used copper for red, iron for
yellow and cobalt for blue. But Chartres’ glaziers, alchemists in their own right, created a blue so
intense, so rare, that no one has duplicated it.
This window is a testament to many things, not least of
which to the artists themselves, for reds and blues were the most difficult glass
colors to create. Stained glass artists worked at their benches often flashing up to forty coats of glazings
just to get the right hue and luminosity. For these ruby reds they overlaid green, purple, brown and yellow. What made matters
ever more challenging, they couldn’t view their work
until it was actually hung.
But beyond the craft, this crowned “empress mother” and her child
speak to the creativity of soul-salvaging.
The stained glass windows at the Vermont Salvage were simpler designs
composed mostly of yellows, browns and greens. No rubies or lapis
lazuli, but still, they were a welcome break from winter’s white. And my soul took
note.
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