Raynham's Center Glass is first class

Raynham — John Mariorenzi, the proprietor of Center Glass Co. Inc., in Raynham, has the hands of a craftsman and the instincts of an artist.

He’s the craftsman who replaces windshields and produces mirrors, tabletops, and the like in his shop at 568 Broadway. And he’s also the artist who creates the strikingly colorful stained glass windows that pop up here and there in his workplace.

Auto glass occupies 75 percent of the time for John and his son Mark, his partner in the company. The two spend the balance of their workdays on household products like mirrors, storm and screen doors, and tabletops.

The father-son team takes pride in the fact that they enjoy a substantial amount of “hometown business,” working to meet the glasswork needs of  the various Raynham departments.

“They’re all friends,” John said of his municipal clients.

Mariorenzi, a Rhode Island native, has been working with glass for his entire adult life - and a stretch of his teens as well.

“I started working with my uncle after school in Cranston,” he recalled. “I worked with him for five years, then joined Pittsburgh Plate Glass and worked in their auto glass department.”

During those years, he also learned how to create tabletops and work with various types of windows and mirrors.

In 1971, he established his business in Raynham out of a small garage adjacent to his home. In time he not only expanded the garage, but helped his wife, Barbara, to establish the consignment store that she still maintains on the second floor of the family’s residence.

Besides his ongoing relationship with town departments, Mariorenzi enjoys ongoing relationships with local contractors who need occasional replacements for windows broken by the stones that fall from trucks passing through town. And son Mark works regularly with United Parcel Service branches throughout the region.

Center Glass, by the way, picks up cars with broken windshields and delivers them to their owners once the work is completed.  John said it takes “about an hour” to install a new windshield, and another three hours to dry the glue that secures the window to the vehicle’s frame.

“We insist that they wait that length of time” before using the vehicle again, John said.

If auto glass is the bread and butter for Center Glass, stained glass is, so to speak, the dessert.

It was back in his Rhode Island days that John ventured into the world of stained glass.  His early mentor was an Englishman who, curiously, was reluctant to share some of his trade secrets with his pupil. John admitted, with a smile, that he would occasionally look over the man’s shoulder.

“And I read books and learned from others,” he added.

In about 1985, his business well established in Raynham, John began to teach the art of fashioning stained glass. He conducted two classes a week, each class containing 10 people. The classes extended from 6 to 9:30-10 p.m., and the students in the end could produce a couple of different types of stained glass - one using lead, the other copper foil.

“The process begins with a paper pattern,” he said. And when the juices begin to flow, the creative urge becomes almost addictive.

“Once you see it coming to life, you want to come back and keep working on it.”    

A handsome example of John’s work is a window in the garage area that measures 32 by 76 inches and catches the eye of the passerby with its vibrant colors. Another of his windows overlooks the stairway leading to his wife’s store.

The safe and secure new windows that John and Mark install represent the body of their work.

For John, the stained glass represents his creative signature.