When Marsha asked me to be part of her mother’s memorial service, I really didn’t know how I was going to begin. But, serendipitously I became aware of a new book….about an exhibit of Tiffany Studio art works which opened this week at the Museum of Biblical Art in NYC…..the book arrived Wednesday and as I quickly looked thru it, I knew how to honor Betty.
Most books about the Tiffany Studios have little or no mention about the women artists and designers who played an important role in what are now iconic stained glass windows around the country. I am sure most of you know where I am going with this…or perhaps not….but when I first became aware of Betty, it was in the middle 1980s when a newsletter of the Michigan Glass Guild had a mention of her as the director of the Michigan Stained Glass Census, and as I had not ever heard of her of this project before, I certainly wondered who she was. At the time I was a student at Eastern Michigan in the historic preservation program but also very involved with stained glass art work.
So I volunteered to assist with the Census, and was invited to her home, where among others things in the many years I came to the house, we always had a special lunch that Harlan would put together….the soup was always the hit of the day.
Anyway, Betty informed me about the thesis she had written about women in stained glass, which I shortly purchased….so the other day I got out the thesis and reread her introduction, her summary and her bibliography…to show you the extent of her research, the bibliography has 67 letters listed from 1984 that she received from archivists, churches and librarians in response to her over 200 letters she sent out…In many respects, Betty’s research was a forerunner of several books written in the last few years which NOW discuss women artists and designers in stained glass….but, because Betty’s research was not published as a BOOK, there are many in the stained glass community who were not, and possibly still are not aware of her comprehensive research.
I did an online search for the publisher of dissertations and found that Betty’s thesis of 386 pages can be downloaded as a PDF file for $37…. soft copy is $55, a hard cover is $70…now, interestingly Marsha’s was also listed… her’s was ONLY 186 pages and for the SAME price as Betty’s…..so Betty’s is a much better deal!!!