Craftsman's work lives on

(article from Sioux City Journal, written by Lenore Hageman, Journal correspondent)

    HINTON, Iowa - Nick Bogenrief's craft is older than this centennial town.
    The art of making stained glass windows dates back to the Eleventh Century.
    Bogenrief got his start a few years ago helping his father, Frank, repair lamp shades at Frank's Folly, an antique store here.
    Then father and son started making lamp shades. Soon, they formed B&B Art Glass Inc., and located the new business in space behind Frank's Folly.
    Now there is no end to the orders.
    Among them are the restoration of windows from the 12th Street Illinois Central Railroad Station in Chicago, built in 1893. The windows were so badly grimed with soot it was impossible to see the color of the glass, Bogenrief said.
    Bogenrief attributes the brisk business to word-of-mouth advertising and the fact that he's located on Highway 75, "which stretches from Texas to Minnesota."
    "It's really kind of unique to be able to restore something to its original form," he said. "It's nice to see the quality of things that were made back then, the craftsmanship. Workmen took their time and took pride in their work."
    "I would like more free time to make some very unusual pieces of my own design."
    His largest order, workwise, was from a bank in Canton, S.D.: five teller cages of stained glass. "It was a three-dimensional deal," said Bogenrief.
    He also has done two large sidelights which were shipped to Kuwait for the front door of a house built there by an Arab.
    His most unusual order was reproducing the design from a French poster. It included a picture of the Eiffel Tower into which a bull was integrated and was inscribed with the French words for "Week of Leather."
    He restored two round windows 12 feet in diameter for a 100-year-old church in Morrhead. They needed rebracing, releading and regrouting because when the church door was opened the windows would move.
    Racks of glass line the walls of his workshop. There is a bin full of patterns so if a piece needs to be replaced in a work he has done, the pattern is available. In a drawer are about 15 boxes of glass samples so customers can choose glass by color and texture. An overhead transparency projector sits in one corner, used to enlarge designs or draw design on glass.
    Two stained glass doors in metal frames dating back to about 1880 lean against a partition, each needing 74 pieces of clear, beveled glass and a few colored pieces. Bogenrief thinks the doors probably opened on to a garden.
    Lamp shades sit here and there. Ten doors bought from the Shephard Apartments in Sioux City and dated 1882 lean against another wall. Bill Ideker has stripped the oak wood, and Bogenrief replaced the ribbed opaque glass panel in the top half of the doors with stained and beveled glass. He has sold about six sets of those doors already.
    Twelve arched window frame tops from the Tolerton-Warfield (later I-Go) Building were bought from the man who salvaged the building. chuck Mertes, an artist from Le Mars, carved flowers in the outside corners.
    Bogenrief's brother, Mark Bogenrief of Seney, worked with Nick for about three years, learning the business and helping his brother, and has since branched out on his own.
    Bogenrief also does slide presentations, detailing the process of the manufacture of stained glass work.
    Bogenrief sums up his philosophy with a smile, when he says, "You'll never get rich working with your hands. What's really nice is the nice people you meet in this business. And it's really good to go into a place and see a piece you did and know your work will outlive you."