What's on?

Hammering out a witness to the future

by Beryl Rule

[This article appeared in the March 2005 edition of TMA]

In religious work it is very important to understand the roots of faith – you can’t do it as a cold act of creation,” Janusz Kuzbicki said. It is also essential to have absolute trust in the person you are working with – and this was easy for Janusz in creating the stained glass for the processional doors at St Paul ’s Cathedral. His co-artist was his wife Magdalena, and after 25 years of marriage the couple, who were sweethearts at High School in Poland, have a sense of artistic rapport which makes them “perfect partners” at work.

Janusz describes himself as “primarily a designer, working in marble, bronze and glass”. Whereas some designers use master craftsmen to implement their concept, he does everything himself.

“For me, there has to be a direct relation between the artist and the material – I have to follow through from the design and have complete control of the process from A to Z,” he said.

For the cathedral doors he and Magdalena used the French dalle de verre (literally, “chunks of glass”) style. This involves using very thick glass which is already coloured. Their art lies in selecting from a huge array of colours to achieve exactly the tonal structure required by the design, then hammering the glass piece by piece to make the facets which will intensify its brilliance.

“It is very hard work,” Janusz said, “and every blow counts. Some may be massive, others just need taps to take off flakes.”

Raised in the Catholic Church, Janusz, who has had other commissions for St Paul ’s, says laughingly that in Melbourne he is “an adopted Anglican”.

He was very conscious of the responsibility of working on the doors. “This is an historic building, a civic building and a place of worship,” he said. “It was a privilege to be able to beautify it, and the ceremony of dedication was a crowning moment.”

For him, art is a vocation “and if you have it you have no regrets. I am a man of now – for we are all a product of our age – conveying a message, leaving a witness for the future of our times and thoughts. It has been humbling to be part of this great project, one of the many who have made it possible – the fund-raisers, the Dean and Chapter, the architect, those who made the glass and the steel…”

As an artist, he says, he holds “a never-ending dialogue with himself” about who he is and what he is doing. Every morning he experiences a rejuvenating force which drives him on to create. “Yes, I would call it God-given,” he said. “It is elemental. It is the force which makes the rivers run.”