When Glenn Greene was a teenager in Cleveland, Ohio, he needed a new job. His gig as a busboy meant he had to \u201chitch, walk, or bus\u201d to a far-off restaurant, and he was starting to hate it. His mother suggested he work for a family friend who owned a nearby stained glass studio. This was 47 years ago, and Greene has been a stained glass purveyor of \u201ccreations and restorations\u201d ever since.<\/p>\n
Greene started out doing menial work at the studio and worked his way up. \u201cI can remember they were like \u2018OK, you want to be a stained glass artist, here\u2019s a broom,\u2019\u201d he said. But from there, he started making his own glasswork, and his supervisors encouraged him to create original pieces. His first original piece was an arch-shaped tableau of mountains and rays of sun, adorned with glass of every color. It sold the day he finished it.<\/p>\n
He moved to Pittsburgh when organizers of a volunteer project to restore a church on Bellefield Avenue in Oakland reached out to him. \u201cI\u2019ve been in more than my fair share of churches for a Jewish boy,\u201d he remembered.<\/p>\n
However, he did create stained glass windows for his mother\u2019s synagogue in Cleveland, as well as for Temple Ohav Shalom in Allison Park. \u201cMy mom gets naches points forever,\u201d Greene quipped. The window he created for that synagogue is particularly striking: Interlocking Stars of David hover over the synagogue\u2019s eternal flame.<\/p>\n