Guest artist, Triway students create art with glass
An Ohio Arts Council grant made it possible for guest artist Bob Maruna, second from left, to teach Triway Junior High School students Landon Hochstetler, left, Nathaniel Cook and Ava Golias how to create stained glass works of art.
Triway Junior High School students learned to create art with glass thanks to an Ohio Arts Council grant.
Eighth-grader Nathaniel Cook called it a cool new experience.
Art students at the school spent a week with guest artist Bob Maruna, who taught seventh-graders how to make a mosaic by arranging pieces of glass to produce a picture or pattern. He instructed eighth-graders to create a leaded stained glass work of art.
Maruna taught art at Triway JHS for 30 years. In retirement he mastered the art of mosaics and stained glass.
The $2,200 grant funded his appearance as a guest artist and covered the supplies needed for the artwork including the glass, lead, glass cutters and grinders, and soldering irons.
“All the soldering and grinding and glass cutting was really interesting,” Cook said.
“I’ve never done anything like this,” eighth-grader Ava Golias said of working with stained glass art. “(It) taught me to be more precise with my measuring because all the pieces have to be perfect to fit.”
Her finished piece, she said, will hang in a window at home.
To prepare for Maruna’s visit, the students watched videos on glass cutting to familiarize themselves with the skill and researched artists who use stained glass in their artwork.
The students were focused during the instruction and worked well to apply the skills they learned, said Lisa Acker, supervisor of community and academic services for Triway Local Schools.
“It was great watching the kids step out of their comfort zones and use a new medium and tools,” Triway JHS art teacher Bruce Taylor said. “Seeing them receive instruction from an artist was exciting. They really did accept the challenge with open minds.”
“The experience will provide lifelong memories for the kids,” Acker said.
The bigger picture in this is now that the school has purchased the equipment for glass art, it will offer a class specifically for this type of art next year.
Maruna said he creates mosaics and stained glass from his basement studio at his Wooster home, mainly for friends. He’s also done work on commission.
While teaching school, he said, “I did construction work in the summer. The cutting, soldering fits my style of what I like to do. Constructing and window art go together.”
Triway’s grant was part of a larger $22,000 Ohio Arts Council grant awarded to the Tri-County Educational Services for expanded learning opportunities in Ashland, Holmes and Wayne counties from March through mid-June.
“The Ohio Art Council’s funding has made a tremendous impact on our local students because they are getting fine arts experience that they normally would not be able to have,” TCES fine arts consultant Michelle Muro said. “It’s great to see students engaged in hands-on learning, creativity and exploration. This stained glass fine arts experience will stay with them for the rest of their lives, as well as a personal work of art to be proud of.”