Class with Glass Designs

 Jennifer Shizak at her Callaway Village shop with one of her original designs.
ST. MARY’S TODAY photo by Ahmar Khan

New techniques allow more freedom in creation of customer’s requested art

By Ahmar Khan
ST. MARY’S TODAY

CALLAWAY — She takes credit for running many Peeping Toms out of business in Southern Maryland.
“I was born right across the road in Leonardtown,” said Jennifer Shizak, 32, who has lived in St Mary’s all her life.
But she admits, “My husband knows more of my family than I do.” The family she was born in, called Springers, is possibly of Dutch origin, she said.
Shizak is president of Stained Glass Overlay (SGO), Callaway. “Seventy-five percent of the work I do is solving privacy issues,” she said.
A graduate of Frostburg State University, she said her graphics design degree helps her “little bit” in what she does for a living.
“Every piece that I have built so far has been one of a kind design,” she said.
She said her work was customer driven in the sense that many a time a customer would come with a self-created design, with their own art.
“It looks almost exactly like real stained glass,” she said of the product she makes.
Shizak said she uses solid pieces of glass or other smooth surfaces and applies ultraviolet high quality films and cut glass pebbles. But she said she had much more design freedom than cut glass, though the final product would look like real stained glass.
She said traditional stain glass was made up of lot of tiny pieces soldered together. “We don’t solder. We don’t need to.”
Shizak claimed her product had an edge over traditional stained glass. “Traditional stained glass is usually expensive, designs somewhat limited and it’s very heavy and fragile,” she said. “As it gets older, it gets weaker.” The product she handles is safer in the sense when it breaks, it’s breaks like the window of a car.
She said overlays could easily be cleaned with Windex.
Shizak said stained glass overlays were much lighter, and design-wise not limited. “I can do lot more with design,” she said. “And as the product gets older, it grows stronger.”
She said she used some of the same design techniques and tools that are used in traditional stained glass, but because of her graphic design background she could do very personalized designs with over 300 colors and textures.”
“The hardest part people don’t understand, is that I don’t pull out existing windows from people’s homes, business or churches,” she said.
She said she would go and take the measurements and then designs the overlay that can be put on it. “Very easy to pop them out,” she said, making her product ideal for the military or those on the move, from one place to another. “Everything we do is lightweight.”
She said, “We are very big in kitchen and bathroom.” At times, a customer may want the glass cupboards in the kitchen covered as the dishes don’t match, she said.
Shizak said she also deals in one of the finest architectural glass rand lines called Arch Deco Glass, faux wrought iron which actually is wood, and handles orders for sandblasting and etching. “I do that at home,” she pointed to a Pelican etched on glass.
She said request work for traditional glass repair work come pouring in all the time and she was looking for someone to help her handle those orders.
The mother of two admits her hours are rather weird, partly because she has to go out for consultations. “Mondays and Saturdays are usually by appointment,” she said.
She said she can sense the consultations are not going to be cold calls after talking with the person on the phone line.
She said her husband building background helps her with the business. In spite of his fulltime job, he helps Shizak by going out do the measurements of arched and tem plated windows. “I don’t do tem plating. He builds the panel and we both fabricate,” she said.
She said her favorite project thus far was the work she did for the St. Paul’s United Methodist Church.
She said because of many requests fro carrying traditional glass, she could now order them for interested customers. She said SGO did not consider stained glass as a competition. “Rather it wants us to be a full service provider,” she said.
She said request work for traditional glass repair work come pouring in all the time and she was looking for someone to help her handle those orders. She said there were only a handful of traditional stained glass artists in the area “three or four people” most of whom, she said, were hobbyists.
Shizak said anyone interested in learning stained glass overlays, could do so by working for her.
Other than husband, a daughter and son, Shizak said her family consists of two ferrets.
“My son now goes to the school I attended. The ball has come full circle.”
She said she loved art as long as she could remember. “I am now raising two artists. They are seven and three and drawing their own house plans,” she said of her son and daughter.
 
One of Jennifer’s creations is this new Mama Leone’s Brick Oven Pizza art which was designed by Calvert resident Billy Woodward Jr. and will be at the entrance to the new Callaway pizza parlor.