by Dennis Dalman
Just about every day, Laura Ruprecht cuts her hands (accidentally) as she meticulously slices bits of glass into shapes to create stained-glass panels of radiant colors and stunning designs.
Fortunately, the cuts to her hand are tiny; the finished panels are big and eye-popping.
Ruprecht is a stained-glass artist extraordinaire. Ten of her recent works will be exhibited for the public from Tuesday, Nov. 7-Monday, Nov. 20 (10 a.m.-6 p.m.) at the St. John’s University Art Center. At that same place, from 6-9 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 15, Ruprecht will discuss her works during a visit from both the Central Minnesota Audubon Chapter and the Midwest Peregrine Society. That event is also open to the public.
This year, Ruprecht received a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board and used those funds to create mosaic panels depicting endangered birds of Minnesota. Eight panels will be among the 10 works in the SJU Art Center exhibit. Among the endangered birds are prairie chickens, loggerhead shrikes and burrowing owls.
Ruprecht not only is a master of the art of stained-glass, she also teaches at art centers throughout the state how to create mosaic art works, including stained-glass. She is the owner of the “Laura Liz Mosaic Biz,” located in her St. Cloud home. Its garage serves as her work studio.
Born in St. Cloud, Ruprecht grew up in Rockville and graduated from Rocori High School in 2005. Four years later, she earned a degree in art (emphasis on painting) from the College of St. Benedict. In the 2010s, she worked as a bartender at the Midi Bar in downtown St. Joseph.
The Paramount Center for the Arts in St. Cloud commissioned Ruprecht as an apprentice artist where she created a few stained-glass works. Although she enjoyed painting, she rather quickly decided later that mosaics and stained-glass were more to her liking and her talents.
In an interview with the Newsleaders, Ruprecht said she had always been a creative child while growing up on the family farm in Rockville. Her parents also had a creative knack for such hobbies as gardening. Her mother enjoyed making imaginative quilts, piecing them together in much the same way an artist would piece together stained-glass panels.
Ruprecht described how she works. She buys large sheets of colored glass from Michael’s Stained-Glass Studio in St. Cloud. She draws her elaborate, very intricate and interlocking designs and then she cuts pieces from the sheets of colored glass to gradually assemble the design, rather like putting together a jigsaw puzzle. She glues the pieces to a “backer board.” Once the work is completed, she lets it dry thoroughly, then brushes on a layer of grout that “sets” the pieces and holds them together.
“It’s kind of like laying down floor tiles, then putting down grout (in the spaces between the tiles),” Ruprecht said.
Most of her finished works are 18 inches x 24 inches.
While a student at the College of St. Benedict, Ruprecht spent some time studying German and some art, too, in Austria where she loved visiting the old medieval churches with their luminous, colorful stained-glass windows, little knowing at the time that stained-glass would in the future be her own artistic specialty.
Ruprecht is keenly aware and concerned about the environment and the creatures that depend upon it, some now bordering on extinction.
“My works can help inform the public about wildlife conservation, being mindful of our natural resources and how they are dwindling,” she said.
Ruprecht compared the public’s learning from her works to how centuries ago people in Europe, most of them unable to read, would “learn” lessons in churches by pondering stained-glass windows, usually visual equivalents of scenes from the Bible.
“The fragility of stained glass is to me a kind of metaphor for how fragile nature is and how it’s being threatened,” she said.
Ruprecht’s husband, John Schulte, is a drum teacher at the Wirth Center for the Performing Arts in St. Cloud. Years ago, the two of them were in a band together, he playing drums, she playing keyboard and singing.
The couple has two beloved cats – Evelyn and Bonnie.
Laura Ruprecht in her studio.
This dazzling stained-glass panel, entitled Shriking a Pose, by Laura Ruprecht depicts a shrike bird and a monarch butterfly, both on the endangered species list.
This intricate stained-glass art work by Laura Ruprecht shows two prairie chickens, an endangered species.
