Artwork copyright Jack Archibald. Photo courtesy of Washington State Arts Commission, 2016.

Artwork copyright Jack Archibald. Photo courtesy of Washington State Arts Commission, 2017.

Benediction, 2001

Jack Archibald
(American, born 1950)

Location: Highlands Elementary, Renton

ABOUT THE ARTWORK

Artist Jack Archibald created the stained-glass window Benediction as part of a body of work that explores symbols. Archibald asks the viewer to “think of the universe as if viewed through a microscope.” Not wanting to impose meaning on his abstract, geometric symbols, he notes “I'm not necessarily searching for explanations in my work. If words are the DNA of language, a codification of culture, then by studying symbolic parcels, perhaps we can partially construct an alphabet. From an alphabet we can evoke a language and from a language we can create the world.”

This artwork was acquired for the State Art Collection in partnership with Renton School District.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Glass artist Jack Archibald uses light to animate the colors and abstract shapes in his stained glass artworks. In his own words, "As a stained glass artist, I work with light. Glass is uniquely interactive with light, its transitions, its intensities, its colors. Throughout the day, a window constantly undergoes transformation. The changing light animates the glass."

Archibald earned a Bachelor of Arts degree (1972) from the University of Wisconsin. In 1981, he established the private studio called "Revisionary Glassworks" on Camano Island, on North Puget Sound, Western Washington.