HELD: When Pieces Become Something More

Sometimes a piece of stained glass begins with a pattern.

HELD began with a story.

I was asked to create an original stained-glass piece for Ronald McDonald House Charities of Central Indiana and its 2026 Taste of Home Gala. Before I started drawing, choosing glass, or thinking about construction, I was introduced to the Reives family.

Shecara and Thomas Reives are the parents of five children: Carmine, his twin brother Rook, Reaux, Tatum and Kourtland. Rook's life was much too short, and it was through his journey that the Reives family was introduced to the Ronald McDonald House of Central Indiana. As I learned more about their story, I knew that Rook needed to be part of HELD—not as something separate, but woven quietly into the piece and the story of the family who inspired it.

I knew almost immediately that I didn't want to create a literal picture of their story. I wanted to make something that could hold pieces of it quietly—something about family, love, loss, community and the people who surround us when life becomes uncertain.

That idea eventually became HELD.

Finding the idea

The original design started with fragments.

Rather than building a traditional stained-glass scene, I imagined many individual pieces of glass flowing together. Different shapes. Different colors. Different textures. None particularly important by itself, but each necessary to the whole.

That became the central idea behind the piece:

Individual pieces, each different and imperfect, come together to hold and support one another. Together, they create something strong, beautiful and whole.

It felt like the right metaphor for Ronald McDonald House, but also for family and community.

And, honestly, it felt very much like stained glass.

Stained glass is made by taking individual pieces of glass—different colors, textures and shapes—and carefully cutting and fitting them together. Each piece is ground, wrapped in foil and eventually joined to the pieces around it with solder.

What begins as a collection of separate pieces becomes one thing.

Building meaning into the glass

Some of the symbolism in HELD is easy to see. Some of it isn't supposed to be.

The colors move through purples, blues and teals into warmer yellows and textured clears. Water and sky influenced the palette, along with warmth, sunlight and the feeling of openness.

Circles and curved shapes appear throughout the design, inspired in part by Carmine's love of bubbles and swimming. Small flashes of red are tucked into the composition as little sparks of energy and life.

Rook is there too.

I didn't want his presence to feel separate from the family or announced with a label. From the beginning, I wanted references to him to be something you discover—an understated presence woven into the larger composition.

And then there is the heart.

It isn't outlined.

There isn't a big red heart sitting in the center of the panel telling you what you're supposed to see.

Instead, textured clear glass forms the suggestion of a heart within the movement of the other pieces. Depending on the light and where you're standing, you may notice it immediately. You may have to look for it.

That was intentional.

Because sometimes we don't recognize what is holding us until we look more closely.

184 Eventual Pieces

Once the idea was settled, there was still the small matter of actually making it.

Each piece was selected, cut, ground and fitted into the design one at a time. Some pieces changed as the panel developed. Colors shifted. Shapes were adjusted. Glass that seemed perfect on the table sometimes looked completely different when placed next to another piece.

That's one of the things I love about working in stained glass: light gets a vote.

Glass changes depending on what surrounds it, what is behind it and where the light is coming from. A piece can look quiet on the worktable and suddenly come alive when held to a window.

HELD was designed around that idea of changing perspective. The closer you look, the more you discover.

Eventually, after days of cutting, grinding and adjusting, all 184 pieces were fitted together on the workboard.

And then I moved it.

The board caught the edge of the table, and about a third of the carefully fitted pieces fell out.

I worked my way through the pieces, fitting them back into the design as best I could. When I was finished, there were three pieces left over. Somewhere in the collapse, I had reconstructed part of the design differently than it had been before.

There was no going backward. I spent another day and a half cutting and fitting new glass, recreating that portion of the panel around what was now there.

(There is no photograph of the disaster. I was a little too busy wiping away the tears.)

Eventually, 184 pieces were together again. This time they were foiled, soldered and secured into a single panel measuring approximately 24 by 18 inches.

And somewhere during that process, it stopped feeling like 184 individual pieces.

It became HELD.

More than a stained-glass panel

Ronald McDonald House exists for families experiencing circumstances most of us hope we never face. It provides a place to stay, rest, eat and simply be together while a child is receiving medical care.

But what stayed with me while making this piece was the idea that a house is more than a building. It is people.

It is someone making dinner. Someone offering a room. Someone sitting beside you. Someone remembering your child's name. Someone making an impossible day slightly less impossible.

It is being surrounded by people who may not be able to change what is happening, but who can make sure you don't have to go through it alone.

That's what I wanted the glass to say.

Not that broken pieces magically become unbroken.

Something different.

That individual pieces can remain exactly what they are—with different shapes, histories, colors and edges—and still come together to create something strong enough to hold one another.

HELD

I finished HELD in September and delivered it to Ronald McDonald House Charities of Central Indiana ahead of the October 2 Taste of Home Gala.

There are things hidden in the panel that most people who see it will never know are there.

That's okay.

In fact, I think that's part of what makes the piece work.

You don't have to know every story contained in something to recognize that it has meaning. You don't have to see every connection to know that you're being held by them.

Sometimes you just have to stand back, let the light come through, and see what all those individual pieces have become together.

HELD was created around the Reives family's journey with Ronald McDonald House—a story of family, loss, compassion and the community that surrounded them through some of life's most uncertain moments. It is a reflection of what can happen when individual pieces come together to create something stronger than any one of them could be alone.

An Update: HELD Finds a Home

At the 2026 Taste of Home Gala, HELD was auctioned for $1,200 in support of Ronald McDonald House Charities of Central Indiana.

After spending so much time with this piece—from selecting and fitting those 184 eventual pieces of glass to telling the Reives family's story through them—it was pretty special to meet the people who chose to take HELD home.

I'm grateful that this piece could contribute in one more way to the work of Ronald McDonald House—and that its story will continue beyond my studio.