The Beauty in the Broken Glass (Co.)

Bellaire’s Brooke Brewster is giving stained glass a 21st-century update

As far as art forms go, few things are more traditional and stoic than stained glass.

This ancient practice invokes thoughts of quiet churches, stately administrative buildings, and other imposing structures, where it has been used for more than 1,000 years to add color and tell stories.

Brooke Brewster has a few designs traditional enough to hang in your great-aunt’s house. A flower bouquet here, perhaps. A fruit basket there.

But what gets her going are her more irreverent designs. Booties (not the kind for your feet), shrimp cocktails, cartoon Chicken McNuggets, screaming possums, smoking frogs, balloon animals—you name it. She wants to have fun. And more importantly, she wants to spread joy.

“We have a lot of turmoil going on in the world, and your home is your safe space,” she says. “I like that people are able to look up and smile or laugh or get a little giggle before they start the day, or if they’re just walking by.”

With each sale of her self-described “whimsical” pieces, Brewster scatters some more good vibes in a world that needs them. These works are particularly popular, proof that they resonate with people.

“People are actually really drawn to those pieces,” she says. “I try to do some ‘normal’ designs, but they really want those funny, silly, and often dirty pieces of glass, which makes me even more happy to know that those are hanging everywhere.”

Living the Dream

Brewster, 40, is from the Flint area and now lives and works in her home studio in Bellaire. She’s made and sold thousands of pieces through her business, Broken Glass Co. (check it out on social media).

She moved up north about three years ago after time spent in Detroit and Lapeer, where she was a school art teacher. She had to have side jobs as a teacher to make ends meet, and she’s thrilled that she can now support herself completely with her art.

“It melts my heart every day that I’m able to do this and share it with people, and that people give me money for it. Mainly it goes to my herd of animals,” she says. “I’m not rich—I’m not buying a property on Torch Lake or anything—but to be able to keep creating and be able to do this and not have to have a side job [is amazing].”

One of her side jobs while teaching was at a greenhouse, and it was in that gig she picked up the habit of working with glass to make handmade terrariums. A coworker who dabbled in stained glass-making gave Brewster some equipment, and from there was born her newfound passion.

She quit teaching during COVID and moved to Detroit, which turned out to be an excellent place for inspiration as she learned the ins and outs of stained glass.

“Living in the city, I would pick up scraps of glass from the abandoned churches and bring them home. I’d find all of these different colors and textures, a lot of stuff they don’t even make anymore,” she says. “I probably trespassed in a few buildings that I shouldn’t have, picking up some of those scraps of glass, because I was brought in by the broken windows.”

When she decided to move to northern Michigan, she specifically sought out a home with room for a studio. As with most creative processes, there was—and continues to be—a good deal of trial and error.

“I’ve definitely had a lot of slip ups. Glass is such a fragile material to work with, and I don’t have the softest hands,” she says. “Even when I draw, I wear through a sharpie in probably two days of drawing.”

The Process

Brewster first creates a design—she broke down last December and purchased an iPad to do some design work, but still draws most by hand—and then gets to work on bringing it to life.

“I come out in the studio, grab all my different colors I want to work with and hold them up to the window. Some are opaque, some are translucent,” she says. “You kind of play with that light, though sometimes you’re battling with Michigan and cloudy days and really being able to see the light.”

Brewster doesn’t make the glass itself. She buys it in sheets from various suppliers and saves her many scraps, and she’s been known to spend hours on end searching through piles of glass to find just the right pieces.

“Some of it’s streaky, some of it has textures. I have German crackled glass that I’ve gotten from a few Marketplace finds that they don’t make anymore,” she says. “I have bins and bins and bins of glass—many art people are hoarders—and I won’t throw any away.”

Then she cuts and grinds the pieces before soldering them together.

“Traditional stained glass has mainly the silver solder, but I like to use the black patina because it gives it this illustrative look and I think it really makes the colors pop,” she says.

Inspiration and the Future

Brewster on average makes at least one new design a week, from which she often makes multiple pieces. Inspiration comes from everywhere: pop culture, personal experiences, things she reads about or sees.

She also takes commissions, and that’s a particularly special and meaningful process.

“It’s so exciting for me to take somebody’s idea, whether it’s their pet that passed away that they want to have in their window so they can look at it and smile, or sometimes it’s…something from the childhood home that they grew up in,” she says.

You may note that many of her works feature Kewpie dolls. These dolls were very popular in the early 20th century, and Brewster has an affinity for creating pieces with these dolls in fun or interesting situations. One such Kewpie piece hangs in the very popular Glendale Burger Shop in Traverse City, a particular point of pride for Brewster.

“My grandma collected Kewpie dolls, I thought they were really creepy and fun,” she says. “I didn’t like sleeping in the same room with them, but now I’m kind of fascinated by them.”

Going forward, Brewster hopes to one day teach stained glass-making and pass on her skills.

“Another side project I’m doing is working on a pattern book, and hopefully I can always continue to make patterns even when I’m not able to cut glass and take in the solder fumes,” she says.

Shop at brokenglasscompany.bigcartel.com or follow along at instagram.com/broken_glass_co.

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