Ben Tuna is good at transforming rusted-out, patina-eaten wrecks into art.
For the past few months, in a nondescript stucco warehouse on a sleepy street in Glendale, California, he has used stained-glass salvaged from sanctuary tableaus to rebuild the windows of a 1965 Porsche 911 he found derelict in Ohio. Once empty, the frames are now filled with palm-sized fragments of centuries-old church glass that glow like a sacred kaleidoscope. Halo-clad seraphim in verdant robes grace the rear of the car; the cameo face of a bearded prophet in deep repose appears at shotgun.
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In the past weeks, though, the second-generation stained-glass artist has been alchemizing something that hits closer to home: vintage classics torched in the Los Angeles fires and left for junk.
“When the fire happened, I started seeing all these great cars on Instagram, and I knew they’d just be thrown away,” says Tuna, 30. “I was like, ‘I have to intercept some of these. I can do something so cool with them.’”
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Now, with the melodies of Wes Montgomery wafting through the wooden rafters of his Glass Cowboy shop, and an assistant quietly working nearby, Tuna is adding reclaimed glass to a 1965 Porsche 356 that burned in the Palisades; near pink hibiscus blooms, the hand of a saint reaches heavenward through golden fleur-de-lis and dark roundels.
“My dad was an incredible artist,” Tuna says. “I got all my color knowledge from him. It’s my color selection, my use of color and material, that separates my work from everyone else’s.”
He’ll display his initial Porsche 911 publicly for the first time at the Motorluxe gala Aug. 13, during Monterey Car Week in Carmel, California. The Porsche 356, to be unveiled to the public at a later date, is the first of at least four LA fire cars he will recast as art pieces to sell. The series is not about restoration; it’s called “Resurrection.”
Tuna is an unexpected player in the ancient trade of stained glass. It certainly wasn’t because his father, Mark, pressured him to take over Glass Visions Studio, the business he founded in 1979.
“He still tells me, ‘I don’t want you in this business. This is a dirty business, a nasty business. You could do so many greater things,’” Tuna says. Working in the studio as a teen and seeing his dad create masterpieces in the premier architectural and historic estates of Bel Air and Beverly Hills—only to remain in obscurity—drove home the point.
In most architectural and interior magazines, the craftsperson who fabricates stained glass for a light-filled entryway or dazzling rotunda goes uncredited in lieu of the name-brand designer or decorator hired to oversee the work. Glass artisans are often overlooked among dozens of skilled workers on-site, or intentionally gate-kept to prevent poaching by higher-paying clients.
“I always had a problem with dedicating yourself to something that is underappreciated, and that’s the whole craft of stained glass,” he explains. “My dad made thousands of windows over his career, and how many of those people even know who he is? Not many.”
So the younger Tuna went a different route, earning a teaching degree in Seattle and cutting hair to make ends meet before taking a job doing special effects at Warner Brothers Studios in Burbank. Then, in 2020, one month into winning the bid for a massive overhaul of the Playboy Mansion, the elder Tuna suffered a debilitating stroke.
“Someone’s gotta do this,” Ben Tuna recalls thinking. “The money that we make from this business supports the family: my sister’s college, my parents’ groceries.” With his dad in critical condition at the hospital, Ben quit his job and took over the Playboy Mansion project. He had already learned the fundamentals of the trade, like hand-drawing concepts with colored pencils; sourcing the highest-quality glass; using centuries-old knives; varying tension on the blade as he cut, based on color, width and quality; floating the solder to create a perfect seam; even installing 80-pound pieces in the gilded estates of LA’s undulating hills.
Five years of nights, weekends and extreme focus later, Ben finished the work his father initiated. He ultimately completed even more, than the initial project stipulated, installing roughly 250 windows in total throughout the iconic Holmby Hills mansion, now owned by private equity heavyweight Daren Metropoulos. “They gave me the platform to trust my instinct,” he says. “They’re like, ‘Here’s a closet. Let’s do something cool.’ That gave me a lot of confidence.”
Now Tuna oversees a handful of employees and hundreds of installs a year in homes from Hancock Park to Malibu. Wait times can stretch six months. “If Ben could clone himself, he would be very busy. Everyone wants to work with them,” says interior designer Sarah Shetter, a longtime client and collaborator with Glass Visions Studio.
Edwin Castro, a Powerball winner and car collector, is a childhood friend and an enthusiastic early client. He commissioned Ben to create a wall-sized wavy glass mural that would throw blue and orange light across an entire room of his sea-side abode, which has since been lost to the fires.
“I’m blown away by the intensity of interest,” says Valerie Tuna, Ben’s mother. “It’s fascinating: I’ve been married to a fabulous artist, and there was no interest except for in very small circles. Ben has broken through the stained-glass ceiling.”
Conjuring such beauty takes a toll. Tuna often cuts his hands, but the greater pain comes from losing fragile work. “With glass, you break it, you’re done, start over,” he says. “There’s no room for re-do, there’s no room for try again. You have one shot.”
Lead permeates everything, from the centuries-old scenes to the newer pieces; the paint, stains, minerals and assorted chemicals can be toxic, too. “It’s bad for your health, and it hurts your body, and it fights you,” says Tuna, adding that recent tests have indicated heightened levels of lead in his blood. “It’s almost like being a miner. You’ve got this great fortune that you could make, but you’re also sacrificing your health.”
The price of the materials alone would discourage dilettantes. A single crumbling church window can cost $5,000 to $250,000 or more; decomposing air-cooled Porsches cost thousands of dollars—even the engine-less ones.
Which brings us back to the rusted-out husks. Tuna’s car work represents a pivot from the jobs in private homes, and the occasional church or temple, that have been his company’s primary focus. Created under his own Glass Cowboy brand, the Porsches embody his determination to continue what had been his father’s chosen path while fashioning it into something of his own.
Making vibrant doors and intricate accent balconies pays the rent and keeps food on the table—but it doesn’t ignite his passion. The cars, on the other hand, are greater than the sum of their parts, since they combine the classical training Tuna received from his dad with his own signature skill, talent and vision.
“I never loved this work, and that’s why I’m doing stuff now that’s not traditional,” he says. “There are like 50 years of work in these cars, and I’ve only been alive for 30. That is what excites me.”
The more patina—and patron saints—the better.
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