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Stained Glass Is Having a Renaissance—and This California Studio Is Fueling It

Jun 16, 2025

Whether you call it art glass, leaded glass, stained glass, or in the parlance of Frank Lloyd Wright, “light screens”—we’ve been noticing designers are embracing translucent wonder a little more as of...

The crafted home: stained glass scions creating California dreamscapes

Jun 1, 2025

Anne Wallentine

Artist James Jean’s “Pagoda” is an epic vision of fused glass panels that, when complete, should be like entering a multi-faceted, almost psychedelic gemstone. The intricate craft is the work of LA-ba...

The nation’s most prolific stained glass operation is a small Calif. family studio

Feb 7, 2024

Sometime in the early 1900s, William Lees Judson, the Los Angeles-based business impresario and painter, received what might be the most impressive resume of all time from a hopeful artist. In a bid t...

Look up: The 32 most spectacular ceilings in Los Angeles

Mar 3, 2023

As a child, I’d often visit the Griffith Observatory, where my parents took me and my sisters to marvel at the views of the city and see the stars at night through the famous public telescopes. But wh...

Judson Studios is moving stained glass-making into the future

Jul 13, 2022

Staff/Andy Schlachtenhaufen

Tucked away in a rambling, two story, shingle and stone structure in highland park lies the 125-year-old Judson Studios, the oldest family-owned and family-run stained-glass studio in America. Five ge...

Stained Glass That Breaks All the Rules

Apr 21, 2021

LOS ANGELES — In 1893, an itinerant plein-air English painter came to the West Coast to die. At 51, William Lees Judson could look back on a life full of adventure: trans-Atlantic crossings, farming O...

How a stained glass business is holding up in a shaky economy

Jul 9, 2020

Kai Ryssdal and Bridget Bodnar

Keeping a family business going from one generation to the next isn’t easy. Just 10% of family businesses are passed from the second generation to the third. So it’s no mean feat that Judson Studios, ...

Inside the Renaissance and Future of Stained Glass

May 20, 2020

When Judson Studios created the world’s first—and still only—fusion glass studio, it was kind of a lark. This detail becomes somewhat overshadowed by the striking images and rich history in the new bo...

Stained glass Judson Studios, CALIFORNIA episode

Dec 21, 2018

PBS Craft in America

About us

Judson Studios is the oldest family-run stained-glass company in America. For more than 125 years, we have designed, fabricated, restored, and installed thousands of iconic stained glass and fused glass projects throughout the United States and around the world.

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