Bruce Buchanan Design

Inside Studio 108 at 78th Street Studios, in Cleveland’s Gordon Square Arts District, Bruce Buchanan Design practices a craft measured in centuries rather than seasons: stained glass. Bruce Buchanan came to the medium after years working in graphic design and studio art, having studied at Kent State University before earning an art history degree from Cleveland State University, and after establishing himself first as a painter and sculptor, he shifted his focus to stained glass around 2000. The design studio itself was formally established in 2017, giving the business a clear founding date even though Buchanan’s personal work in the medium stretches back much further. The studio’s output splits across several distinct categories: custom commissioned stained glass created for individual clients, standalone art panels including a series described as barcode blocks and stripe panels, original paintings, and restoration work for historical windows, particularly the leaded glass found in Cleveland’s older churches and residences. That restoration side of the business is where the studio has built some of its strongest local credibility, having earned recognition from the Cleveland Restoration Society for work helping preserve 19th-century windows that might otherwise be lost to age, water damage, or ill-informed repairs. Buchanan describes his aesthetic as colorful and modern while still working within the technical and formal traditions of an ancient craft, a balance that lets the studio take on both contemporary art commissions and historically accurate restoration for landmark buildings without those two strands feeling at odds with each other. Location plays directly into the studio’s identity: 78th Street Studios is one of the largest arts complexes in the country, housing dozens of working artists and galleries inside a converted industrial building in the Gordon Square neighborhood on Cleveland’s near West Side, and Bruce Buchanan Design takes advantage of that setting by holding regular open studio hours. The studio is open to visitors every Friday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., with an extended Third Friday evening session running 5 to 9 p.m. that coincides with the wider gallery walk many of the building’s other studios participate in on that night each month. Those open hours give collectors, homeowners considering a restoration project, and simply curious visitors a low-pressure way to see stained glass work in progress rather than only viewing finished commissions after installation. Clients drawn to the studio range from churches and historical institutions seeking window restoration to residential clients commissioning a single decorative panel for a home, reflecting a business built to serve both preservation-minded and purely artistic ends of the stained glass trade. For anyone in Northeast Ohio searching for a studio that restores historic leaded glass windows or commissions new stained glass art, Bruce Buchanan Design offers a Cleveland-based, Cleveland Restoration Society-recognized practice combining custom artistic panels with hands-on restoration of the region’s aging stained glass heritage.