Doreen Nagano holds up an 18-by-24 inch stained glass window panel she calls The Tropical Garden. Sunlight ignites the oranges, greens, reds and yellows of the heliconias, birds of paradise, and ti leaves in the lush, lovely vignette. It took a month for the self-taught artist to create the piece from 203 pieces of hand-cut glass. So fine is her craftsmanship, it mirrors the magnificence of nature.

Nagano’s world wasn’t always filled with such beauty, peace, and light. In fact, she describes her youth as her “dark life.” Pregnant at 19 with her first of three sons, she left home, got married, and entered a period of turmoil marked by abuse, a nasty divorce, drug addiction, and poverty.

The owner of Tropical Glassworks hit rock bottom in 1989 at the age of 27, soon after the death of her second child and while she was expecting her third. She spent nine months in a drug rehabilitation program, which she describes as “a major turning point.”

Determined to be a good mother and provider for her boys, Nagano enrolled at Leeward Community College, where she made the dean’s list and honor roll for academic excellence in justice administration and substance abuse counseling.

From the time she could hold a pencil, however, Nagano’s passion has been art. A perfectionist, she remembers laboring over every sketch even as a child, cutting herself no slack if it didn’t turn out “just right.”

Three years ago, she was working at a domestic violence shelter while contemplating how she could return to college to finish her degrees. To help pay the bills, she began transforming scraps of glass into ornaments that she sold on eBay for $10 to $20 apiece.

In her search for another place to rent, Nagano found an old plantation house in Wahiawa that had a 200-square-foot workroom beneath it. “I knew I could create something in that space,” she says. “I’d always been intrigued by the beauty of stained glass, so I began reading everything I could find online about it, and bought $500 worth of basic tools and supplies with my credit card.”

Nagano practiced for a year before she felt she had mastered the process well enough to sell her work. Through trial and error, she learned how much detail to put in her designs (too few lines and the piece will look crude; too many lines and it will be impossible to render in glass).

She also became adept at cutting and grinding glass, covering the edges with copper foil and soldering the pieces together. “You must be patient to do stained glass,” she says. “Being persistent and having an eye for colors and textures also help. And, like anything, you need to practice, practice, practice to be good at it. Every step of the process can make the difference between an exceptional piece or a mediocre one.”

Today, Nagano creates exquisite Tropical Glassworks—stained glass lamps, candleholders, suncatchers and window panels depicting familiar Hawaiian images such as honu (sea turtles), dolphins, fish, tropical birds, tikis, shells, palm trees, petroglyphs, and plumerias. Each is an original, precisely handcrafted work of art, and no two are exactly alike.

Nagano usually works on one piece at a time, two at the most. On average, she puts in 12-hour days, five days a week. It takes her several days to several weeks to complete each project, depending on its size and complexity. Custom orders can be variations of existing designs or brand-new ones.

“It’s rewarding when customers tell me how happy they are with their purchase,” says Nagano. “Stained glass adds elegance and value to a home. Properly taken care of, it can retain its value and even increase in value over time. But it’s much more than a good investment. Like any cherished work of art, it can provide you with endless pleasure. You can’t put a price on that!”

Tropical Glassworks
(808)387-8507
www.tropicalglassworks.com