Becky’s stained-glass childhood

September 24th, 2025

From the time I was little until I moved away to college, my mom, Julee, used a large room in the basement of our Lincoln home as her stained-glass art studio. She started in the medium when I was about three years old, with one customer, and over the years eventually grew her business enough to have large commissions. But in my mind, she was always a successful stained-glass artist.

The basement studio was well-lit with all kinds of electric lights, but the only natural light came through one hopper window at the top of the west wall. Growing up, I wandered into the studio whenever I wanted–to ask her to make me a snack, or if I could have a friend over or go to the pool.

As a teenager I’d end up in her studio chatting about a book I was reading, discussing the possible symbolism of a dream I remembered, or venting about my demanding, but brilliant, choir teacher who terrified and inspired me.

She listened and helped me work through whatever was on my mind. While we talked, she might be cutting patterns for a design out of card stock, or pushing glass pieces against a little grinding wheel to create the shapes that she needed, or soldering joints in the lead frame to hold the cut glass together.

Julee Lowe woking on a stained glass window design.

Along one wall in my mom’s studio, vertically stacked wooden pallets held hundreds of glass panes she had ordered from catalogs. The raw materials for her art rested against each other like a curated library of color and texture.

Every pane was different, many of them multicolored and swirling, but even the solid colors had slight variations in texture or thickness. She held panels up to the fluorescent light, looking for just the right section of characteristics to suggest the movement of flowing water, the curve of a flower petal, a child’s auburn hair glinting in the sun, the wooly coats of sheep in a field.

A couple of the walls around us featured full-sized drawings of current commissions, along with sketches of new ideas and completed favorites. The space under her huge wooden work table held boxes of lead, so heavy I have no idea how she got them down the stairs.

Julee and Becky, mom and daughter.

Plywood stacked on concrete blocks served as bookshelves. The glossy covers promised pages of evocative images–Arabian horses, Frank Lloyd Wright, African fabrics, Georgia O’Keefe, wildlife on the prairie, Nebraska grasses. No matter which season it was, a small fan quietly whirred, blowing our hair into our eyes–and the solder fumes away from our noses. A calendar, a clock, a radio tuned to the classical station, and the ever-present can of Diet Coke sat nearby.

Mostly, my mom worked on her windows by herself, while I was off at school and my dad was at work. I knew a window was complete when her installation guy and his helpers showed up to maneuver these large and fragile works of art up the stairs and out of the house.

Stained-glass by Julee titled, “Sunset,” and located at Zion Lutheran Church in Sutton, NE.

Once a commission was in its final home, the light shining through revealed the brilliance of my mom’s creativity. I heard her say many times that the result was always better than she imagined. A sketch of ideas assembled into cut glass held together with curving lead became a glorious partnership with light–reflected inward during the day, and outward when lit from within at night.

My mom died in 2012, but she left behind a remarkable legacy of over 70 church windows across Nebraska, and countless windows in residences and businesses. Her smallest window is in a dollhouse in California; her largest window is 26 feet tall and you can still see it at St. David’s Episcopal Church in Lincoln. 

A Nativity-themed window designed by Julee and located at Southview Christian Church in Lincoln. This work was Julee’s first big commission and the church where she was married.

My mom’s panels and suncatchers grace nearly every window of our house, from little etched images of blue gamma grass on a single piece of glass, to 2-foot by 2-foot abstract swirls of purple, blue, and white. We have an iris window with beveled glass edges hanging in the east window of our breakfast nook. When the sunlight refracts through the bevels, it shines rainbows into my kitchen. And I smile and say hello to my mom.

The light coming through one of Julee’s stained glass windows on a recent morning in Becky’s Dundee home.

To watch a video on how Julee made her stained glass windows, go here.