Directed by Justin S. Monroe
Written by Justin S. Monroe, Ryan M. Fritsche, Gillian Fritsche
Starring Tim Carey, Narcissus Quagliata
Release Date November 10th in Los Angeles, California
Published October 28th, 2023
"In your gut, how think the window is going to turn out?" the director asks artist Tim Cary. Cary responds "I don't really trust my gut about anything." And that's the arc of Tim Cary in Holy Frit, a man who will have to learn to trust his gut and make gut wrenching decisions about his art, his massive multi-million dollar stained glass piece, and the future of his career and family. None of these decisions has an obvious answer and Tim is going to be forced to trust his choices are right without knowing what the outcome will be, trusting the gut, the instinct, as he's not done before.
What is Frit? That is probably the first question anyone would ask, based on the title of the documentary, but it's not that special, in and of itself and the answer is passed on to us in passing. Frit is very small pieces of broken glass. Frit is the innovation of an artist named Narcissus Quagliata, a larger than life personality who innovated in the world of glass art in a way that no one had before. I can't tell you exactly how Frit works, but when dusted onto other forms of stained glass, it creates a remarkably colorful design, unlike anything you've seen before.
The fact that Tim Cary had never worked with Frit before when he pitched his employer, Judson Stained Glass, as the company to create a 4000 square foot stained glass window for a Kansas City Mega church is just one absurd fact about how this massive stained glass work of art came to be. Judson didn't have the technique, the staff, or the space to do a project as massive as a 4000 square foot stained glass window. Oh, and the design that Tim Cary pitched to the church, is the kind of design that, at the moment he pitched it, didn't appear to be possible.
