Pearl River Glass Studio elevates art form, national reputation.
Pearl River Glass Studio isn’t exactly a household name.
But if you live anywhere in Mississippi, you’ve likely seen its work — even if you didn’t realize it.
And its contribution to the state’s artistic reputation only continues to grow.
From new or restored stained glass to contemporary works, Pearl River Glass Studio has completed more than 3,000 projects for churches, museums, hospitals, schools, businesses, and homes since its inception nearly 50 years ago.
As one of the premiere glass studios in the nation, it also has been tapped for projects across much of the South as well as Detroit, Boston, and beyond.
“Glass is just a real fascinating material,” said Andrew “Andy” Cary Young, founder of the Jackson-based studio, “but it’s really been grossly underrated as an art form.”
The 71-year-old has spent his entire career working toward shattering that perception — experimenting and innovating every step of the way.
We are creating a significant piece of public art for the city of Memphis that people from all over the world are going to come and see.
In Memphis, the studio is finishing a massive restoration and memorial project at the historic Clayborn Temple. The church played an instrumental role in the sanitation workers’strike that preceded the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King.
“We are creating a significant piece of public art for the city of Memphis that people from all over the world are going to come and see,” Young said.
If the studio hadn’t started experimenting with fused glass in the late 1970s, way ahead of the curve, the mural component would have not only been artistically limited, but cost-prohibitive, Young said.
Its most recent project, started late this summer, is the restoration of the stained glass windows in the skylight of the Mississippi House of Representatives. This follows the restoration of more than 100 of the capitol’s stained glass windows in 2015.
A 22-year-old with a dream
The studio’s starting-out story, like many in Mississippi, was a humble one.
Young was the top landscape architect graduate from Louisiana State University when he returned home to Jackson. But the 22-year-old, who also had a minor in art, had taken one stained glass class while there and was hooked.
In 1975, he opened Andrew Young Design Services in a small garage in downtown Jackson. But he knew his vision was no one-man show. College roommate Reggie DeFreese, who trained in stained glass, joined him a few months later. After a brief time on North State Street, the renamed Pearl River Glass Studio moved to its present location, 142 Millsaps Ave., in 1976.
Young said the $200 a month for 2,000 square feet “kept us going in the early years, because we were always able to pay the rent.”
Eventually, the studio bought the space and continued to expand to its current five buildings for a total of 17,000 square feet. There is a gallery along with facilities and equipment for kiln form glass, acid etching, glass painting, and even a water jet for precision cutting.
With annual revenue topping a million dollars, it employs about 15 to 20 people at any given time, mostly artists in their own right.
Breaking boundaries influencing careers
Betsy Bradley, director of the Mississippi Museum of Art in Jackson and former executive director of the Mississippi Arts Commission, has known Young since the 1980s.
She’s not only seen the studio’s large projects, but individual works like ornaments, vases, plates, and garden art available for purchase.
“I think he’s very egalitarian in his approach,” said Bradley, “creating beautiful glass to be a part of people’s daily lives wherever they are.”
Young’s work with glass, particularly outside established boundaries, “is pretty remarkable,” she said.
The studio has come up with a process that makes outdoor public glass installations shatterproof, as exemplified in a project for the museum.
But the bread and butter of the studio’s work is stained glass windows for churches.
“The work they do is important,” Bradley said. “Their work really does enhance people’s spiritual lives,” and considering the number of churchgoers in Mississippi, “it affects a whole lot of people.”
The way Young has brought in apprentices, she added, also has “shaped a lot of careers,” from both the artistic and business side. “He’s made a real contribution to people aspiring to make a living as artists.”
Andrew “Andy” Cary Young
Family: Children Abigail, 23; Charlie, 22
Education: Bachelor of Landscape Architecture, LSU; Education for Ministry degree,
University of the South, Sewanee, Tenn.; studies with Ludwig Schaffrath,
H.G. Von Stochausen and master iconographer Vladislav Andrejev; grant-funded
travel to Europe to visit gothic cathedrals and glass companies
Awards: Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts, 2002; The Craftmen’s Guild of
Mississippi Lifetime Achievement Honoree, 2016; Innovate Mississippi’s New Venture
Challenge Business Plan Winner, 2017; Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters:
Noel Polk Lifetime Achievement Award, 2018
Free studio tours: Available during business hours, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Monday-Friday, individuals or groups, 601-353-2497
Learn more, view portfolio: pearlriverglass.com
Gardening and painting/upcoming public events: Home yard tour as part of Fondren’s second annual garden Tour, Oct. 7, 8, fondrengardentour.com; “Searching for Abstraction” paintings, Municipal Art Gallery, Jackson, Oct. 26 through November
Raising the bar for other artists
Rob Cooper, 47, is one of those artists.
First stepping into the studio as a high school student working on a stained glass assignment, he later did summer work while attending college. He returned to the studio after studying at the Maryland Institute College of Art.
Over the last decade he has specialized in glass painting — portraits or imagery needed for projects.
A career at the studio while pursuing his own work has been an ideal creative situation, he said. His wife, artist Wendy Eddleman-Cooper, started working there after time at the Wolfe Studio in Jackson.
Cooper said one draw is Young himself.
“He knows so much, traveled, seen so many different styles of glass,” Cooper said. “He’s fearless, not afraid to try something new. He’s inspiring to be around.”
Larry Albert of Albert and Robinson Architects out of Hattiesburg became acquainted with Young in the mid-1990s and has worked with him on several projects, including the Ogletree Alumni House at The University of Southern Mississippi.
“He raises the bar for other artists,” Albert said. “When I think of Andy, my mind’s eye sees him mentoring a studio full of glass artists.”
That is a scenario that Young embraces not only for himself but also for other artists, as part of the recently formed Pearl River Glass Conservatory.
Being set up as a nonprofit teaching and educational arm, it is designed to continue Young’s goal from decades ago: “That if there is any technique that we can do with glass that can further our ability to express ourselves as artists, we want to master it.”
Cross section of Mississippi projects
Mississippi State Capitol, stained glass restoration, Jackson
Mississippi Arts & Entertainment Experience, stained glass window, Meridian
Christ United Methodist Church, stained glass windows, Vicksburg
Forrest General Cancer Center Healing Garden, Hattiesburg
St. Joseph Catholic Church, windows, Starkville
Beth Israel Congregation, Gus Herman Memorial Holocaust Garden, Jackson
Mississippi Museum of Art, Art Garden sculpture, Jackson
First Baptist Church, windows restoration, Laurel
Trinity Episcopal Church, windows restoration, Natchez
Outlets of Mississippi, architectural glass, Pearl
