MP senior becomes artisan after 30-year programming career
BRONX TIMES REPORTER, J 26 UNE 14-20, 2019 BTR
Thomas Tronconi with one of the painted
glass designed lanterns he creates in his
Morris Park home and offers to sale at fairs,
churches and other venues.
Schnepes Media / Patrick Rocchio
OPEN HOUSE
DESTINATION: BMCC
SATURDAY, JUNE 22, 2019
Call or Text (347) 305-4497
www.bmcc.cuny.edu/cng
BY PATRICK ROCCHIO
Retirement can be an exciting adventure,
and one local artist and artisan
is proving that every day.
Thomas Tronconi of Morris Park
became a master woodworker and
stained-glass designer after retiring
from his job as a computer programmer
at a major cultural institution in
2002.
Tronconi said he developed these
hobbies to stay active and keep his
mind sharp after wrapping up his career.
He recently built a 15-foot-tall
backyard castle for his two-year-old
granddaughter Callie that is complete
with a drawbridge that opens,
a swing, sandbox, slide, and windows
that open.
The two-level structure and its
tower were constructed from plywood
remnants, he said.
“It gave me something to do, and I
thought she would enjoy it,” Tronconi
said of the fi nished playhouse, which
they have named ‘Callie’s Castle.’
He said he granddaughter loves
the castle, especially its swing, and
added that her cousins are also making
ample use of it.
The modular castle was fabricated
in the basement of the Tronconi home
beginning in January, and follows
a long-line of building experimentation
as he looked for ways to utilize
his talents after retirement.
“When you are retired, you can
take as much time as you want on (a
project),” said Tronconi. “If you are
doing things commercially, ‘time is
money,’ as the saying goes, but in retirement
you just do it until you get
tired of it.”
Tronconi also got active creating
glass and wooden electric lanterns
with different designs – ranging
from images of saints and religious
subjects to ‘art nouveau’-style lamps
– and began selling them through
street fairs and church shops.
He builds each lantern by hand,
affi xing velum images to each side of
the four-faced lanterns, which usually
contain 28 pieces of glass each,
fi nding much of what he needs in
terms of inspiration and instruction
to complete his projects online.
Tronconi also undertook a special
home improvement project, where he
created glass-paned door that contained
200 pieces of stained glass in a
formation of a woman in the art nouveau
tradition, art that was popular
at the end of the 19th and early 20th
centuries.
The door took some eight months
to complete, said Tronconi, who
pointed out that the face of the woman
in the door is that of actress Natalie
Portman.
He has also tried his hand at writing
mystery novels, self-publishing
a detective book called ‘The Counterfeit
Kidnapper’ and even a narrative
of his own battle with prostate
cancer, penning over a dozen unpublished
manuscripts.
He stresses it is all for fun and a
sense of fulfi llment.
“You have to keep busy in retirement,
because you either wear out or
you rust out,” he said.
This stained glass door, constructed by Tronconi,
used 200 pieces of individual glass and
took about eight weeks to complete.
Schnepes Media / Patrick Rocchio
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