Michael Martino – Windows in the soul

Articolo pubblicato su internet relativo all’artista che ha realizzato le vetrate dell ns. chiesa.

Photo by Art Illman
At Martino Stained Glass Studio, Michael Martino pictured with stained glass to be installed in an eighth century church in a small village in the region of Umbria, Italy.

By Liz Mineo/Daily News staff

From his studio in downtown Framingham, Uxbridge resident Michael Martino has been producing stained glass windows for churches in several villages in the Italian countryside.
Of all the work he has done from his Waverley Street studio since he started in 1975, Martino holds the projects for the Italian churches closest to his heart despite the fact the exchange takes place 4,000 miles away.
It’s an exercise of gratitude, said Martino, the son of Italian immigrants. He grew up in Framingham and learned his trade during a three-year stay in Milan, fresh after graduating from Framingham High School in 1971.
“They changed my life,” said Martino. “They loved me like a son and changed the course of my life in every positive way. I just wanted to say thank you to them.”
Over the past 14 years, Martino has done stained glass work for 10 Italian churches, most of them located in the Apennine Mountains in the northern central part of Italy.
From the first one he did for a church in Nismozza in the province of Reggio Emilia back in 1993 to the most recent, which he’s still working on, for a church in Pieve San Vincenzo in the Apennine Mountains, Martino loves them all.
“It comes from a feeling of gratitude and a desire to do something not just for money,” he said.
Martino hopes to travel next May for the dedication ceremony of his two latest Italian masterpieces. The other work he’s finishing up is a set of stained glass windows for a church in a small village near Gubbio in the Umbria region.
How Martino ended up doing stained glass work for churches in Italy is something he attributes to word of mouth. After he made an offer to the priest of the Nismozza church to do a set of stained glass windows to show his gratitude to the village that welcomed him, requests from other priests and residents followed.
“Word got around,” said Martino.
After the first church, Martino’s wife asked him to do some stained glass windows for a church in the municipality of Ramiseto where her family hailed from. Then, he was asked to do something similar for churches in the municipalities of Nigone, Acqua Buona, Camporella and Selvapiana, all located in the Reggio Emilia province.
Martino, of Martino’s Stained Glass Studio, charges the minimum to the Italian churches, many of which lack resources to hire someone in Italy to do stained glass work for them. He also sells his stained glass works to the public.
A charitable man, Martino also embarked on a humanitarian mission to bring clean water to Kenya more than 10 years ago. Martino found and shipped a drilling rig that would be able to dig 26 wells that will provide water for about 250,000 people. He’s still working to raise money to start the drilling.
But as long as he has the stained glass studio, he’ll continue to pay his debt of gratitude to the country that welcomed and helped him find his calling.
“I’m proud of my cultural heritage,” he said. “I had the opportunity to come to Italy, learn Italian and grow friendships that have lasted for 30 years, but the most important thing they did for me was to change the course of my life. For that, I will be always grateful.”