SAN FRANCISCO -- For more than 50 years, shards of colorful glass, preserved in 25 carefully labeled envelopes, had been stored in an old Italian shoe box under Fred McDonald’s bed.
The broken bits, taken from bombed and bullet-riddled churches throughout Europe during World War II, represented more than just shattered dreams and lives. To McDonald, a Seattle native who died in San Francisco in 2002, they were tangible links that fused history to the present, as well as the future.
Now that glass is the showpiece of an exhibit at the War Memorial Veterans Building in San Francisco’s Civic Center. “Remembered Light” includes the works of 13 artists who used those fragments, along with McDonald’s memories, to fashion new stained glass windows, sculptures and 3-D pieces. At the end of its run — the exhibit will be open Wednesday-Sunday through Nov. 20 — the works are destined for a more permanent installation in the Presidio Chapel.
