For Owusu Ansah, art has been an exceedingly generous muse. Every since his hands touched clay as a young boy in Ghana, his talent was undeniable to his instructors and family.
Art has also been a fiercely demanding muse for Ansah, interfering with marriages and forcing him to forgo the financial comfort of commercial appeal and instead create thought-provoking sculptures.
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But Ansah, 66, has found peace and financial security of sorts, using his artistry to restore stained glass — an ancient craft that once found its greatest use illustrating Biblical stories in churches.
In February, when a vandal smashed three of the historic glass windows dating to 1889 at Mother Bethel AME Church, the Rev. Mark Kelly Tyler called on Ansah, one of the city’s few master stained glass artists, to repair the damage. Ansah said working on stained glass windows requires a combination of artistic talent, as well as technical and engineering skills, not often found in a single person.
» READ MORE: What an act of vandalism shattered, acts of generosity restored at Mother Bethel AME Church
The translucent tiles were each a rectangle of a single green, blue, yellow, or orange. Recreating them was straightforward for Ansah. “When I say it was not challenging, I mean it was simple cutting. It was easy. There was no painting of images involved. That’s what made it basic.”
Because Mother Bethel is a National Historic Landmark, Ansah said one of the most significant challenges was matching the new with the old — the texture of the glass, the tile color, and the lead used to keep the glass in place — to maintain historic accuracy. The other was the decay he discovered. “The wooden frames were coming apart after 100 years.”
For Ansah, the work on the historic windows provided a small bit of local attention that has escaped him since leaving Ghana in 1979 to attend the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.
Coming to Philadelphia to study art
A member of the Ashanti tribe and one of 28 siblings, Ansah remembers like it was yesterday the first time he got his young hands on a lump of clay and made a sculpture of one of the rabbits his father raised. Even untrained, he was able to capture the likeness — an early indication of his artistic gift. There seemed to be no doubt that his immense talents would carry him far.
But talent did not mean an easy path forward. He lived up to his name, which means strong-willed and determined. At every step, Ansah had to be tenaciously polite to get needed art supplies and access to the art classes he required, refusing to take no for an answer. He found ways to get his work in front of people by sending them unsolicited portraits of themselves, too realistic to ignore.
On the advice of a tourist in his hometown of ku*msai, the second-largest city in Ghana, Ansah applied to and was accepted by PAFA. He knew little of the school and nothing of Philadelphia when he arrived on Jan. 4, 1979, welcomed by a bitter winter coldness he had only read about.
“I registered for the Spring semester, so I thought it would be spring,” he said, laughing at the memory. ”Man, was it shocking.”
And he had no doubts that his talent and belief in excellence would take him far. At first, it did.
A master artist but not a household name
In 1983, the year he received his Bachelor of Fine Arts from PAFA, Ansah was commissioned to create a bust of Russell S. Gideon, a Seattle-based pharmacist, community activist, and a Prince Hall freemason. When African Americans were excluded from joining existing Masonic organizations, they founded Prince Hall Freemasonry in 1784.
Ebony magazine annually hailed Gideon as one of the nation’s 100 most influential Black citizens, in part because of his leadership role with the freemasons. A year before Gideon died, a bust by Ansah was commissioned and placed in the Masonic Cathedral’s Hall of Fame at 1514 Fitzwater St.
He has also sold his sculptures to collectors. “I sold $10,000 worth of artwork,” he said. In 1984, PAFA awarded him a traveling scholarship, the second Black person in the school’s history to attain that honor, he said. “I went to Ghana. I wanted to to go home.” Ansah received a Master of Fine Arts from PAFA. In 1997, he had an art exhibit at the African American Museum in Philadelphia.
But slowly, the flurry of post-graduate activity and fame dwindled. Rarely is Ansah given artistic credit for the stained glass and other works he creates.
“Right now no one knows me,” he said recently at his studio in Germantown. He has restored stained glass windows at Canaan Baptist Church, The City School, Greater Mount Olive AME Church, and The Church of St. Andrew and St. Monica.
A self-taught master craftsman in stained glass and etched glass, he worked for over 20 years at stained glass shops and become chief designer for the now-closed Philadelphia Art Glass. In addition to restoring old windows, he prepares many etched-glass retirement plaques for local fire departments.
Celebrating the restored stained glass windows
“When you’re doing the restoration, it’s like waking up the dead,” Ansah said in an interview about his work at Mother Bethel.
Ansah is in the midst of raising money to build a museum to house his sculptures and other artwork back in his hometown. In Philadelphia, it is his work to restore old windows that he’ll be best remembered for — windows that for centuries have provoked awe within sacred spaces, even as their creators remained anonymous.
» READ MORE: A church sold its old stained glass windows for $6,000. It turned out they were rare Tiffany glass.
In May, Mother Bethel celebrated the restoration of its stained windows, which had been purchased by former slaves.
“We really want this to be a beacon. What would it look like every night when you drive by, and you’re like, what is that?” Tyler said at the rededication ceremony. “It’s a stained glass window, a church, and the hope is that what we will ultimately do is continue to inspire.”
As parishioners stare at the windows, which will last another 80 to 100 years, most will likely forget the artist’s name — but not the impact of his work.
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