"I kept thinking: What I would do with red glass, with blue glass?" Quagliata said.
In "The Resurrection Window," Christ's skin is yellow. Light-red patches frame the nose. Bright layers of purple, pink and green coat his eyes. The design was Carey's, but the subtle fusion of colors was Quagliata's work.
Members of the congregation wept on the day the panel was hung in the church.
"Fusing glass is spontaneous," Quagliata said. "It awakens a genuine feeling that is rare in religious painting."
In the glassworks and watercolors that he keeps in the studio where he has lived since the early 2000s, no religious motifs can be seen. A masculine figure in red portrays a prisoner, while a blue profile depicts what could have been a Greek sculpture sunk by the Romans in the sea.
The stained-glass window titled "Puerta de la noche" or Door of the Night, by Italian artist Narcissus Quagliata, stands in the garden of the El Santuario Resort hotel in Valle de Bravo, Mexico, Wednesday, Oct. 25, 2023. (AP Photo/Ginnette Riquelme)
"My career is defined by three things: the first one is the light; another one is the love for the human figure -- very beautiful or very distorted -- and finally the approach towards something social."
"The Resurrection Window" took a while to complete, but The Dome of Light, in Taiwan, which holds a special place in his heart, took even longer. The stained-glass piece is made of 1,152 panels, distributed along 30 meters (98 feet) in diameter, and it took Quagliata and his 20 assistants five years of hard work.
"When I came back, I was depressed for months," Quagliata said. "It was like winning the Olympics and coming back to perform in a local race."
What took him out of his sadness was answering a question: When was I the happiest as an artist? And it became clear. He was young and could barely pay his studio's rent, but he was energetic and the faith he put in his glassworks was enough to devote his life to them.
"I told myself, instead of thinking about the past, think about what you want in the future and do it as adventurously and passionately as you did when you were young," Quagliata said.
And so, he learned how to teach remotely. He faced his fears of technology and -- coached by his daughter, an experimental video artist -- he started crafting a digital masterclass.
He also remodeled his studio and says he hopes to take in students from abroad.
"I'm more than 80 now, so I don't like to travel anymore," Quagliata said. "But if I'm healthy, instead of going out to the world to teach, I'd love the world to come to me."
------
Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP's collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
