Locked Doors by Sasha Ward

Getting into churches is a chancey business, often about half the ones on my planned route are locked. Some are locked in a very uninviting way that makes the church look like a building site, such as All Saints, Netheravon, Wiltshire (below), with an arrow to an entrance that looked as if it was never used.

West facing door, All Saints, Netheravon

West facing door, All Saints, Netheravon

Two of the churches on this route along the River Avon in Wiltshire had inviting doors, an outer one at Figheldean (below left) and a solid dated interior door at Fittleton cum Haxton (below right). At this stage, after four churches (two open, two locked) I hadn't found any stained glass that was interesting or different from windows that I had seen before, the doors were all that I wanted to photograph.

South porch doors: Left St Michael & All Angels, Figheldean: Right All Saints, Fittleton

South porch doors: Left St Michael & All Angels, Figheldean: Right All Saints, Fittleton

However as I was leaving Fittleton church, I looked towards the tower through a filthy glazed screen and saw two brown rectangular stained glass panels (below). As the door to the tower was locked (sigh!) I could only see from a distance the vaguely heraldic pattern in the middle of patterned stars.

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A locked door usually leads you to look at the back of the windows. Here they look great (below), such lovely colours and textures in the combination of glass, lead and stone. The glass paint is totally opaque so all you can see are brown tones in a pattern of lead lines governed by the way the glass has been damaged, in a completely different way for each window. They were obviously worth preserving. 

West facing window, All Saints, Fittleton

West facing window, All Saints, Fittleton

My last church, open so final score 3-2, had a beautiful interior (below). It is one of those churches with clear glass in the windows and, perhaps as a result, it is the pale coloured stone of the carved arches and columns that glow with light. 

Inside All Saints, Enfold and a squint in the nave wall.

Inside All Saints, Enfold and a squint in the nave wall.

Battleships by Sasha Ward

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The second part of my commission for the Lidl store in Kingswood, South Gloucestershire has just been installed following the sort of massive delay that has happened a lot over the past year. You can just see the new tile panel next to the Lidl sign in the photo above, for a description of the windows that make up the earlier part of the commission see my previous blog here.

The tile panel links to my designs for the windows that are set along the back of the building on this busy residential street (Cecil Road). It is made of Italian porcelain tiles in a range of beautiful colours, overprinted with layers of detail in ceramic enamel. The oranges are so much more orange than the ones you get in glass, as well as being a great match for the spirit level during installation (below left)

Tile panel during installation and completed: dimensions 1.6 m (h) x 2 m (w).

Tile panel during installation and completed: dimensions 1.6 m (h) x 2 m (w).

4 stages of the design on squared pape

4 stages of the design on squared pape

I call this commission "battleships" because when I was working out the design, concerned about balancing the blocks of detail in the overall composition, I realised I was drawing out a sea full of cruisers, destroyers and battleships as if I were playing the game, with none of them touching each other. I was pleased to find that the printed tiles came with a numbered plan (below) that you could probably use to play battleships as well as getting each tile in the right position.

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There was another lovely sky on installation day, the colours looked great on the side of the building and were much admired by passers by. They are behind the green grid of a mesh fence, but you can get down the side of the building for a closer look.

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Another Return to the Thames by Sasha Ward

Fanlights for two upstairs bathrooms

Fanlights for two upstairs bathrooms

This set of windows are for bathroom fanlights for the same house (as my last post) in Oxfordshire. The shape of the windows, the function of the rooms and the local landscape all led me to return to the River Thames for my subject matter. Although I had walked, photographed and drawn along the path of the river a couple of years ago, I hadn't found a good enough way to show the reeds along the river banks and the general stripiness of the flat landscape before. 

Fanlight one

Fanlight one

The photos of the windows installed, above and below, show the different colour of the light coming through windows and skylights in the bathrooms . The colours of the hand painted enamels are the same for each window, with the image of the blue river flowing to join the pictures together.

Fanlight two

Fanlight two

I spent a long time on the design for these windows, struggling with my riverbank drawings. The designs look very similar to the finished windows, as is shown in the photo of glass on top of the drawing below. Back in my studio the drawings are still on the wall, giving me ideas for the next piece of work.

Detail from window two: sample for window one on top of the sketch design.

Detail from window two: sample for window one on top of the sketch design.

Hops by Sasha Ward

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This house really needed new stained glass panels in its front door - the leaded lights continued to deteriorate (above) while I made the windows which were fitted earlier this month (below). The new windows do a good job of obscuring direct visibility on to the busy street, while letting patches of coloured light into the house which used to be a pub and brew house - hence the hops in my design.

Hop windows, left from the inside, right from the outside.

Hop windows, left from the inside, right from the outside.

Branches of dried hops: section of window design: sketch design for the three windows

Branches of dried hops: section of window design: sketch design for the three windows

I really wanted the plant to look like hop, rather then grape, vines. I gave them particularly thin, twisty stems, small leaves and an extra firing of acid yellow on the hops themselves, which are actual size. Pictures taken on the lighbox during the making (below) show the play of painted patterned pieces from my scrapbox, and how the blocks move diagonally across the design. When the hop vines surround them, the coloured blocks are intertwined with a curvy pattern in green and sandblasted white.

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Details of the left hand panel (above) and the top right corner (below) show how the colours and textures change with the background to the window - obvious really. On the left the details are seen on a lightbox, on the right they have been installed in the front door and, as they should, look much better there with sparkling colours and highlights.

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Lichfield Cathedral in Lichfield Cathedral by Sasha Ward

Lichfield Cathedral in Lichfield Cathedral, The Hacket Window by Charles Eamer Kempe 1901

I always love local detail in a window, particularly a picture of the building you are in. The window above shows Lichfield Cathedral undergoing restoration after the Civil War, Bishop Hacket is depicted in the central panel with plans of the cathedral. The colours and detail of the stone, set off by a gorgeous cloudy turquoise sky, add more local colour. The Hacket Window is one of many works in the cathedral by Charles Eamer Kempe, these include sculpture, memorials, textiles and furnishings as well as stained glass. Further along the south aisle is a staircase with a small decorative window (below left) at its base, in a style that is even more recognisably Kempe's. 

Left: window on the staircase.  Right: window inside St Chad's Head Chapel.  Below: details from central panel of this window.

Climb the stairs and you are in a small chapel, St Chad's Head Chapel, where all the windows are designed by Kempe, with the same motif repeated throughout. I have seen this leaf motif of his before, I particularly admire the way that the undulating blades of each leaf form satisfying squares. It's not obvious what the leaf is supposed to be until you look at the detail in the other windows where the leaves are growing on a thick vine with bunches of grapes (that look like bubbles) crammed up against some typical little angels (example below).

I particularly like the window opposite the altar (detail shown below left) which is composed of the leaf squares in two different sizes. The dark blue background is covered in a flowing version of the vine leaf motif, with bunches of grapes in shades of purple. The windows behind the altar (below right) have added and bigger angels, not that you can see them particularly well behind the reredos, also designed by Kempe, seemingly to hide them. However that photo shows the rich, dark atmosphere created inside this chapel, a former sacristy, by the combination of the warm stone, ancient carvings and a complete set of Kempe stained glass windows. 

Left: detail of window with vine and texts. Right: altar and windows hidden behind reredos

Left: detail of window with vine and texts. Right: altar and windows hidden behind reredos