Our visiting student produces his test piece
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The studio recently hosted a visiting student from Germany, Johannes, who wanted to learn about Stained Glass whilst he was in England. He proved an able pupil and produced his first panel in just three days. We hope he takes this experience home with him and remembers his new skills.Kiln working and glass painting going ahead
The kiln is working, having been mended with a great deal of effort, interesting language and time. So now thoughts of bowls can start again, after a delay of a good few weeks. There is also the opportunity to start firing the glass painting that has been done and has been waiting for a mended kiln. When the new kiln came into the studio we thought it would be a great studio heater. Sadly it is so well insulated that it keeps all the heat inside not sharing it around. Now this is very fuel efficient but not a great solution to cold dank mornings like today. I always remember at college that the kiln area in ceramics, pottery, was always warm and dry with a cosy cave like feeling. Anyway no such luck at stained glass studio, all efficient and well insulated.
This also means that the lamp shown below can now have a new fused glass lid instead of the material cover that was on the original lamp. A new photo will follow once the lid is ‘cooked’ or fused in the kiln.
Glassicals
At the Studio the tallest elf in South Mymms has been making Christmas decorations or Glassicles! These beautiful drips of glass with stars and trees, are great fun and bring something special to any Christmas tree. With Christmas lights shining through they bring a special touch of winter ice and snow from the outside world inside to our warm Christmas celebrations. With small metal rings embedded into the fused glass and fine ribbon to hang them they a great, and in a range of colours there is something to suit everyone.
Stained Glass Studios at the Retail Trust.
This week we got ready to celebrate a completed piece of work. This is always great because suddenly the window that you have worked on and focused on for days and weeks is in its natural surrounding. This week the Studio returned to see the widow at the Retail Trust in Mill Hill unveiled in all it glory. This is a large Victorian window painted in a style that many would see as a ‘church window’ style. What is magical about this window is that you can step very close and see all the detail. In a Church or Guildhall the windows are raised up high above us mere mortals, making any fine detail difficult to see. Here we could see the fine lines on the faces and the delicate detail of the peacock feathers as angels wings. It was also lovely to hear from those who can see the window from their own home, how they welcome the restoration and return of this fine window. It was a lovely celebration and it is good to walk away and feel your work has been really valued. Stained Glass Studio.
Colour
When I think of stained glass I think of the colour that it brings into my house. In the morning my hall is full of colour as the light comes through the stained glass panel in the front door. Sometimes it is like jewels of light and at other times there are long rays of colour reaching out into other parts of the house. From the outside you can bring warmth to your house as you walk up to the door. In the winter with a light in the hall the house glows with warmth. It is such a subtle thing the way colour affects us. The glass does not have to be bright and dramatic too bring that warm, confident and expensive feeling to a house. It can also be a great way to bring a single colour into an area. A blue or green glass can be great in a wet room as a wall divide or an external window. Red could be great for a small intimate internal room suggesting warmth heat and comfort. Now make your own decisions when you look at the glass.
Windows that are not windows
When is a window not a window, when there is no opening behind the panel of glass. Sometimes buildings do not have the window opening that you would expect even though visually your eye expects there to be one. This was true of a church in Harrow. As you look towards the altar, the focal point of the space, the Christian tradition normally has a large East Window. Unfortunately for years this church had kept a long textile hanging behind the altar as there was no window. Matthew Lloyd-Winder decided that with the clever use of painted glass, not using lead lines and the expert advice of a lighting engineer, the illusion of a large East Window could be created. Instead of fitting into a window this would be a free-standing panel, supported by a frame fixed to the roof beams. This allowed the ‘window’ or stained glass panel, to go from floor to ceiling, dominating the space. Each individual pane of glass was then painted and treated, working in a style that would use as much light as possible.
Although this was a large piece of work the same techniques could be used in a smaller space or home. Not every panel of glass needs a window opening behind it. Lighting can be placed behind the glass to bring that glorious illumination of colour through the glass. It is that quality of light that is so special.
Even a window opening sometimes has to obey different rules. Instead of letting you see through the window, stained glass can create a barrier keeping the inside private. Allowing you the freedom of internal coloured light coming through the window but ensuring that you cannot be viewed from outside.
A stained glass window can also be used to pretend there is a view whereas there might be a brick wall only feet away. A window with a good use of exterior lighting can create the illusion of a window looking out onto a view when there is no view available.
Therefore you don’t need a window or a window onto the world to create light and colour into an internal space.
It is all done by magical stained glass.
St Barts – In the process
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Sometimes it’s interesting to see things in the process of being made. These are a selection of photographs featuring the windows in the process, still at the studio and not quite ready yet.
Holiday or renewel…
Ahh it is August and we all run for the hills, or in our case off to the Il de Re an island on the Atlantic coast of France. After we have lasted the first day with the constant reference to the phone and email, just to check how things are going at home and at the studio, then we start to relax. Then one day, a rainy morning, out came paint and paper and the stained glass man was off. First a sketch then suddenly he was inspired and the professional raised its head. A new photo was needed, paper was now taped to the table, and a much more exact pencil sketch was made. Then on to the watercolour to express the feeling of space, sky, wind and weather. This is a place of long vistas as the wind blows across the low-lying land. the sea, sky and inland salt marches give a feeling of openness, and even exposure. As an artist who runs a business this time to draw and paint is a time of regrowth and repair. To practice those skills that are used everyday just for your own use, no stress, no time constraint, just a piece of paper.
Image by Chris Coles
Inspiration and Vision
As I stood in front of an amazing ‘Wall of Glass’ at the newly open ‘William Harvey Heart Centre’ at Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry, I was drawn to think of what is creativity. The work of the artist, Matthew Lloyd-Winder, is certainly a work of creativity. He was inspired by the concept outlined by the client and he went away to design a solution to the outlined project. He was inspired by the idea, the size and the subject matter and within these defined areas he created a solution to the problem. But what of the client. The client and project driver was Professor Mark Caulfield who had the vision to feel that it is important to have art within a scientific building. Why should we find that a dichotomy? Apart from the fact that to create a wall of glass using painting, firing, staining and fusing techniques is all about harnessing chemical reactions to mold and transform glass, we are talking about seeking inspiration and vision. As it says in the brochure for the opening of the William Harvey Heart Centre, the building was; ‘To establish an innovative Heart Centre to drive a research pipeline for novel therapies from bench to patient’. This seeking and driving forward is what the artist does seeking to answer the problem set. It is at this point that there is an estimation of value, and this is not about money. The doctor is there to save life to create a future, all the artist does is ‘decorate’. However, what are we saving the life for if we do not have a positive world to live in. We know that recovery from operations can be improved by what you can see from your hospital window. To be visually stimulated can be inspirational. We can feel better about a treatment because of the venue where we have our treatment. And finally, what is the point of saving a life if when we get home we cannot see out of the window, because there is no glass in the window. Therefore can we say that both the Dr and the artist are creative as they have inspiration and vision.
Mixing Traditional and Modern
Making a stained glass window in 2011 is a wonderful mixture of the ancient and the modern. When you see the painting on glass little has changed since the craftsmen worked on our Medieval Cathedrals. Oil or water is mixed with powdered pigment and then painted onto untreated glass. Paint is built up in layers to give shape, texture and a three-dimensional quality to the image. This will then be fired in a kiln to fuse the paint to the glass. Like the original glass painters, there needs to be a great deal of technical skill to create a realistic image on a translucent material. Every brush stroke will be seen as you can rub out and start again but you cannot cover up the mistakes with another colour.
This traditional technique will be mixed with very contemporary techniques, in a window that the studio are working on at present. This is the technique of Kiln formed glass or heating small pieces of glass so much that they melt and flow allowing for a feeling of colours moving together on glass. This technique can also create raised areas on the surface of the glass giving depth and texture to otherwise flat colours of glass.
Together this mixture of the traditional and the modern reflects the place where the window will finally hang. Designed for a new wing of St Bart’s Hospital in London it will be part of a hospital that is at the forefront of modern medicine. However the history of Saint Bartholomew’s Hospital is as old as the tradition of painting on glass and stems from the same root of the role of the Medieval church in contemporary society. Mind you let’s hope that the many who will see it in the future will just be inspired to look and enjoy the window and that it gives them confidence in the treatment they will receive in the 21st century St Bart’s.
Creating the creation
One of the things that is difficult when working with glass is that you are designing with light, on paper. So sometimes you have to work and experiment with the glass itself. This is especially true when the glass has been painted and stained and processed through the kiln, which can change colour and texture of the glass itself. Below is a work in progress and you can see panels of glass blutaced onto glass to give the designer a clearer view of how the processes are going.
The round spots show how each small panel of glass is added to the plain glass panel to build up the whole window. Each small piece of glass can now been seen in the light against the adjacent piece of glass. Now the whole work can be seen as it flows and merges from one shape and colour to the next. The designer can now make changes, slight alterations using the light within the creation. Once the final design has been settled the glass will be removed cleaned and finally constructed into the completed work.
Kiln…..a visit to Wales
On a warm Tuesday morning the Owner of Stained Glass Studio and Hugo set off to the far north-west coast of Wales to find a new kiln. They set off at nine with hope and returned at 12.45 pm having eaten the worst of the motorway food they could find travelled through thunderstorms in a van that would not go above 65 mph. In between they had seen the road and mountains of Wales…and Buffalo! I am not sure where the buffalo came from but I have been reliably informed that there was a buffalo farm in west Wales. It seems a long way to go for a kiln but second-hand stained glass kilns are rare beasts and this kiln is a beast. In the past large work has been done in kilns beg borrowed on hired in a variety of venues.
So now there is a large metal box sitting in the studio ready for testing, waiting like a great menacing beast to see if the journey was worth it. We await further news…………………………….
New jewel like glass all hand painted. Check out the shooting stars. Made in the last month at Stained Glass Studio.
Through the Stained glass window
Through my window the sun shines in many colours as it comes in through the stained glass front door. I step over panels of coloured light as I look out at the strange coloured world outside. In the winter the light glows out through the door and greets you as you come home. It is unique and special and that is my stained glass front door.
