Barney Zeitz may well be the hardest working artist on Martha’s Vineyard. He is certainly the most animated. His work in stained glass and metal is legendary, known locally, nationally and internationally. On the Island you’ve seen his work in the Hebrew Center, the Grace Episcopal Church, and in the Viet Nam Memorial at the Community Services campus. But you will also find his lighting fixtures, tabletop centerpieces, stained glass windows, and sculpted outdoor showers in homes across the island. Born in Fall River, he has lived on the Vineyard since 1972.

Have you always been an artist?

When I moved here, I started to teach myself glasswork right away. I sold my first piece of glass, a lamp, on the day it was finished, from the top of David Crohan’s piano at the Rare Duck lounge.

How did you get into metal work?

I was doing my glasswork and I started needing to make frames for my glass. Wood frames were too bulky. This friend of mine said, you know, if you make them out of metal you can do something more delicate to hold the piece of glass suspended up. So I started welding frames.

How difficult was it to get your career up and running here?

I just lived really simply. I paid $100 per month in rent for ten years because my landlady loved what I was doing. The worst thing was the grocery store, how much it cost to buy food! This has never changed. And I never made a lot of money but I always made just enough.

So today, now that you are a 
 mature, working artist, when people ask you what you do, what do you say?

I feel like I’m out for rent! Whatever anyone needs is what I do. I have shown at the Granary gallery for years, and someone will buy a centerpiece, and say, well, I need a chandelier, so I do lighting. And I do open studio days. People come, see things and get ideas. I remember when I first started doing glass, my father saw an article in the WSJ that said for every dollar spent on stained glass, particularly, you get two dollars back on the sale of the house. Because it’s something that is a focal point and a feature.

What are you proudest of?

I’m proud of the fact that I’m a laborer. At the same time, I have to use my mind and talk about ideas. It’s very spiritual and sort of intellectual at times. But I am still a laborer and I work really hard. Welding is really abusive, physically. I have to learn to cope with the fact that I am now 65. It’s kind of a mystery, how to outsmart it. I might start making smaller things. But I love what I do. I love my life.

Paula Lyons is a former ABC and CBS television consumer journalist who is now semi-retired and lives in Vineyard Haven.