David Haight ran a successful art gallery with an attached studio where he could work on his acrylic painting. But he quickly discovered the paint would dry and brushes stiffen up every time he had to attend to a customer in the gallery. “I always was interested in stained glass,” says David. “I decided it was a craft I could come and go from as I pleased. So I taught myself how to do stained glass work instead.”
Eventually the gallery needed a warehouse and David found a building with a beautiful second floor that had all glass walls. “It was perfect for a stained glass artist to look at glass in the sunlight,” he says. So he moved his studio into the new location and opened the Rubaiyat Stained Glass Studio in 1973.
His son has now taken up the trade and the two of them run the Rubaiyat Stained Glass Studio, while his wife and daughter operate the original gallery. “We both have our apprentices now,” jokes David. “They are excited about what we do. Both studied elsewhere to do other things and then decided what we do is more exciting than what was laying ahead for them after school.”
