The Artists Profile
Bob and Mary Jo got into stained glass back in 1985 quite by accident. Bob was a structural engineer teaching classes in engineering at the local community college and Mary Jo was a stay at home mom. It all started as a hobby that was soon out of control. Within a year they were entering competition with their stained glass work and were starting to sell their work to finance the next projects. They started First Glass Images in 1989 and opened a small stained glass store in Cheyenne at that time. Business was good and they doubled the size of the store the very next year. While operating the store Bob and Mary Jo sold stained glass supplies, taught classes (over 1000 students) , sold their own work, did custom stained glass, church windows, historic restoration and repairs. They closed the store in 1996 and built a studio behind their home in Cheyenne.
It had been their intention to do nothing but custom work at the time, but public demand for classes changed all that. They did classes, custom work, repairs and restoration until 2000. At that time they became involved with the restoration work at the State Capitol. The work at the Capitol started out slowly. The State was doing a major roof restoration at the time. The roof was being replaced with a copper roof. The stained glass ceilings over the Senate and House Chambers needed to be cleaned prior to installing a metal protective deck and artificial lighting. Bob and Mary Jo cleaned over 900 square foot of glass in November 1999. At that time they did an evaluation of the panels and determined that 6 panels were in critical condition and needed immediate attention.
THE STORE
RETURN
As luck would have it, one of the panels (with the painted state seal) was damaged at the time the metal deck was being installed. It was decided to relead/restore that panel rather than do a repair since it was one of the 6 in critical condition. The restoration of that panel revealed the poor condition of the glass and the decision was to restore all six critical panels. Finally, the decision was to restore all 44 panels. Bob and Mary Jo decided at that time to focus only on this job and quit doing classes and all other custom work.
BOB'S FIRST TIFFANY
LAMP
