Tucked away on the side of Northwest 13th Street, neighboring a barber shop, nail salon and print shop, sits a studio with stained glass gleaming through sun-lit windows.
Inside, numerous stained glass artworks glitter in greeting, all of varying colors and designs. A stained glass snake slithers in the light as the sun begins to dip below the horizon.
The Glass Onion Studio, a stained glass business, recently celebrated one month in a brick and mortar space.
The business isn’t a stranger to the Gainesville art scene. It frequently vends at festivals, art fairs and markets, like the Spring Art Festival in Thornebrook.
In 2025, the business participated in over 100 events, according to owners Shamus McGovern and JJ Mincey.
After three years in business, 28-year-old McGovern and 30-year-old Mincey decided they needed to make a permanent home for their work to shine by itself.
In high school, McGovern took a stained glass making class, which kindled an immediate love for the artwork. Mincey asked McGovern in 2020 if they could make a stained glass craft he saw online. Since then, this “craft” has catapulted itself into a full-blown career and business run by the two of them.
Gainesville has welcomed the pair with open arms, especially within the art scene. McGovern isn't from Gainesville, but he decided to settle here because of the blossoming, captivating community fostered within the town.
“Finding Gainesville felt like I was finding a little hole in the wall,” he said. “I love [Gainesville] so much. It’s so unlike any other area, and our name being The Glass Onion Studio, it felt like a perfect fit for the unique, almost weirdness that businesses tend to have, so it felt like a perfect fit for us.”
The quirky name stems from the The Beatles song “Glass Onion,” which talks about looking through a glass onion — a metaphor for something that seems to have a complex, layered meaning but is entirely transparent. McGovern and Mincey thought the play on the word “glass” brought an ironic and eccentric aesthetic to their company.
Now a month into their vibrant venture, Mincey has high hopes for the studio. He wants to continue reaching out to the community, attracting people to see the pair's own artwork and take the classes they teach on stained glass creation.
“We still plan on doing [festivals],” he said. “[Last year's vendorship] was ‘Let's put the work into it and open a studio,’ and the hard work paid off, because here we are.”
With the new space, Mincey and McGovern have been able to create an educational environment for aspiring stained glass artists. They offer a variety of classes geared toward making specific pieces, understanding the aspects that go into creating a piece and learning to cut and shape glass as desired.
Bridgette Forde, a 33-year-old case manager for dementia caregivers, has taken two group classes and a one-on-one class at The Glass Onion Studio. She met the owners through their vending at events and fell in love with their work. From there, inspiration bloomed. Since then, she’s made several pieces, including a monstera leaf and a Pokemon Cubone skull.
“As they were opening the studio, they were pre-selling classes,” she said. “So [I] did a class, did another class. [I] really fell in love with the art, the craft, and wanted to keep going.”
The one-month anniversary of the studio space is just the beginning for The Glass Onion Studio and its owners.
As the pair continues to grow their business in Gainesville, their work manages to sparkle even brighter, making the town of Gainesville just a little more colorful.
Contact Mackenzie Haas at mhaas@alligator.org.
