Ernest Porcelli
Ernest Porcelli
The challenge of creating a piece of glass that will last for ahundred years is just one of the elements that make me so passionate about my art. The available and ever shifting light is my canvas; the line, color, and texture are my paints.
Creating my art is a logical process, wiht a beginning , middle and an ending. Then it is on to the next piece. It is always about the next piece. In the 35 years of working in glass, only a hand full of new techniques and tools have been introduced into this 500 year old art form.
Knowing that once a piece of my art is made it will be living on long after I'm gone gives me a sense of immortality. It all began in 1971 when I cut my first piece of glass; the magic of cutting glass was overwhelming. I was hooked. Since then it has been a learning process. Designing in the abstract was learned from all the Victorian windows I restore.
I love what my hands can design, cut and construct. I love what my minds eye can see in the beginning of the designing stage. Knowing the material so well, whether I'm designing contemporary or traditional it is all fun for me.
Biography
Ernest Porcelli has been a stained-glass artist for more than 25 years, creating original designs and restoring historic pieces in home, churches, businesses, and landmark buildings throughout the tristate area. His line of unique, colorful fused-glass platters, plates, and bowls have been featured at American Craft Musuem, the Whitney Museum's Store Next Door, and Gumps in San Francisco, as well as other galleries across the country. He has also received distinguished attention in the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and Historic Preservation Magazine, and his work has appeared in several major motion pictures, including Sabrina, Big and Brighton Beach Memoirs.
Porcelli got his start in stained glass after returning from the Vietnam War, where he served in the U.S. Army as a combat photographer. He attended the School of Visual Arts and the New School and worked as a fashion photographer in Manhattan. He happened to take a stained-glass workshop and met acclaimed designer Jean Jacques DeValle, whose design of the Vatican Pavilion had been prominently featured at the 1963 World's Fair. Porcelli's enthusiasm for glass led him to a new career and, by 1974, he set up shop in Brooklyn.
Today, working out of his Art Glass Studio at 543 Nevins Street in Brooklyn, New York, Porcelli uses a variety of techniques, such as paintings, acid etching and sandblasting. He employs glass fusion to create his unique line of bowls and plates, and incorporates fused pieces into his leaded windows and screens. Porcelli welcomes commissions and restoration projects of all sizes.
Included among Porcelli's many restoration works are:
New Lots Reformed Church, Brooklyn, New York
27 19th-century Queen Anne style leaded glass windows, as part of a New York Landmarks Conservancy award-winning project.
Manhattan Bible Institute, New York
16 Victorian leaded glass windows and skylight
Montauk Club, Brooklyn, New York
35 Victorian leaded glass windows
Italian Embassy, once the historic brownstowne owned by Calvin Klein
President's residence at Columbia University
Porcelli's original commissioned works include:
The chapel of Hope Ministries, Port Jefferson, Long Island, New York
5 leaded glass windows
The Church of the Most Precious Blood, Davis Park, Fire Island, New York
11 leaded glass windows
St. Hedwig Church, Trenton, New Jersey
"Maximilian Kolbe Memorial Window", tribute to holocaust victim
Gargiulo's Restaurant, Brooklyn, New York
1500 square feet of leaded glass doors and transom panels
Sam Ash Music World, Hicksville, New York
"Violin Window" for the executive office of Paul Ash
A mosaic piece representing "The Rainbow Society in Which We Live,"
presented to Governor Mario Cuomo by Mayor David Dinkins
A fused-glass ornament for the White House Christmas Tree in 1997
Porcelli enjoys the astonishing fluidity and versatility of the medium. The enduring qualities of glass and the excitement of developing new techniques keep him hooked. "Eighty years from now my work will still be around ," he says. "People will still be enjoying it."