A Sense Of Place / October 27, 2016 by Sasha Ward

Guess which town is the subject of this post. There may be clues on the sign (above) which greets you as you descend from the Old Town to the spreading acres of the new. Confused? Maybe the graphics don't help, I think there are some arrows missing as there is an outer and an inner ring linking the five mini roundabouts that make up Swindon's Magic Roundabout.

In my depictions of places it is my long term practice to combine drawings and photos from viewpoints with maps and diagrams, it helps me find my "sense of place". Although I am often asked to research a particular place for a public commission, in this case I am investigating the magic roundabout, twelve miles from where I live, just for fun.

Nine drawings on thin paper (above) helped me work out what I needed to leave in and take out to make a satisfactory image that also explains the workings of a roundabout that is both logical and mysterious.

The first four glass roundabouts, sandblasting, enamels, oxides & silverstain on clear glass

Magic Roundabout number five, image size 100mm square.

Going smaller for Magic Roundabout number six, image size 75mm square.

P.S. I hope I haven't overthought this one - I've never worried about navigating it before, let's see what happens when we get there for an evening out in Swindon tonight.

Postcards From The Past / October 3, 2016 by Sasha Ward

I'm really not a chucker, but this huge box of inherited postcards has to go. I've had a last look through them, found a surprising number of swaps, endless comments about the weather, some illegible handwriting and kept a few, shown here, as examples of my favourite types of postcard. Obviously stained glass ones are the best, but they are in a separate collection (described in an earlier blog post here).

The first row, landscapes and some classic captions. A photo from China that looks like a painting, a seaside panorama - always fascinating to see how a place has changed - and another seaside view with congratulations to everyone on the birth of my sister from Nice (signature illegible).

"Isn't this a ridiculous picture!"        Excellent message in the form of a list          "felicitations sincères pour le bébé" — "Isn't this a ridiculous picture!" Excellent message in the form of a list "felicitations sincères pour le bébé"

The second row, paintings. In these tiny versions it's the sentiment, the nostalgia that grabbed me. Visual subject matter is beginning to recur too.

Storm in Nice - Matisse   At the Window - Matisse   Girl reading in the reeds - Vuillard   At Breakfast - Laurits A Ring — Storm in Nice - Matisse At the Window - Matisse Girl reading in the reeds - Vuillard At Breakfast - Laurits A Ring

The third row, vertical landscapes. Full of pleasing compositions and the odd figure.

Sent from:   L'Esterel,  Lake Como,  Vladimir,  Beijing,  Rotterdam — Sent from: L'Esterel, Lake Como, Vladimir, Beijing, Rotterdam

The fourth row, animals and people. I remember when I was young these were the only types of postcard I wanted. The mysterious Mary Fedden painting works so well on this scale. However my winner is the painting of a Crow Chief, sent from the Buffalo Bill Historical Centre in Wyoming, with a message that makes me want to go there: "This area is pervaded by ancient Indian culture. Buffalo Bill Cody must have been an extraordinary man. The museum is beautifully done. We went on to explore Yellowstone Nat Park but saw no bears! Herds of buffalo, 2 coyotes, 2 elks, no moose! Fantastic geological formations, geysers, hot springs everywhere, quite fabulous."

Crow Chief - George Catlin                                                    Zebra - Mary Fedden — Crow Chief - George Catlin Zebra - Mary Fedden

Click on pictures to enlarge

Victorian Medieval / September 15, 2016 by Sasha Ward

Rosalind Grimshaw window in Urchfont church, 2000.

I visited St. Michael and All Angels church in Urchfont because my excellent guidebook from Wiltshire Historic Churches Trust mentioned a millennium window there by Rosalind Grimshaw. It's a small window but really expressive with good colour and glass. The whole church is lovely and its stained glass rich and varied. The patterned windows on the south side look great from both inside and out - with columns of big satisfying circles - until you think what wonderful medieval glass might have been there originally.

Victorian patterned windows on the south side

This set us thinking about how to answer the question (of the frequently asked variety), why is medieval stained glass the best? It's too dangerous to mention the quality of the glass itself, because that leads people to believe the myth that you can't get good glass anymore, although when you look at the angel detail from the large south window you can see how harsh and brittle looking the coloured glass is in these particular Victorian windows.

Moving down into the chancel, the angels at the tops of the windows become more interesting, and older. The pair on either side of the altar (below), six winged seraphim holding crowns, are beautiful - with a captivating expression that is so obviously medieval.

The information in the church describes, as usual, the stained glass as either "medieval", "victorian" or "modern", with the sub group of "imitation medieval" for the beautifully coloured patterned windows underneath the seraphim (below right). This convention of copying the medieval window style is the reason why they could never be as good as the originals. Those seraphim were made by people who believed in the work they were doing. The sincerity comes across in the expression of the figures, while the style and workmanship of the windows perfectly compliments the medieval building for which they were made.

Face of the seraph: window on north side of chancel - chancel built around 1340

Click on any of the photos to enlarge them

Improving The Local Landscape / August 20, 2016 by Sasha Ward

It's Saturday so the noise from the building sites in this small English country town has stopped. The crane at the end of the drive is parked with a lovely row of blocks dangling in mid air. What is being built may not improve the local landscape, but while the cranes are here I find this landscape more interesting, more drawable. I found the same type of crane in my photos of Swindon this week - can you find a view without a crane in it these days?

View from the top storey of a Swindon car park

The question sent me to my sketch books, I wondered where I'd drawn cranes from previously.

Answers: from a Malmö balcony in 2013 (above), from floor 7, RCA London (one example from 1984 below), and from a school rooftop in Slough - my favourite type of drawing spot.

Wreay Church, Cumbria / August 4, 2016 by Sasha Ward

I was amazed at some photos of stained glass in Jenny Uglow's book "The Pinecone" which tells the story of Sarah Losh, "forgotten Romantic heroine - antiquarian, architect and visionary". The church she built and decorated in the 1840s is St. Mary's, Wreay, five miles south of Carlisle, a trip worth taking if you want to see something original. It's a small Romanesque building covered inside and out with carvings in stone, wood and alabaster and filled with stained glass all using as subject matter forms from the natural world.

The stained glass that struck me on the pages of the book were examples from a series of windows where the usual type of patchwork/mosaic painted and coloured fragments are combined with circular flower head motifs. I love the way the two styles are shoved together and the way that the bold, irregular flower heads fit into the arched windows high up in the walls on every side of the building. They look so incredibly "modern".

Red, white and blue - three of the small arched windows taken from different parts of the church.

The larger windows in the church, although very beautiful too, are of the standard patchwork type. They were an early commission for William Wailes of Newcastle, whereas the clerestory windows were made by a local firm, Geoffrey Rowell of Carlisle. Even more unusual are the windows that alternate with the clerestory flower heads, impossible to work out how they were made until you look at them from the outside. The solid is carved alabaster, the colour is a collage of glass fragments - like black card with tissue paper.

South west corner, group of three windows from the inside and the outside.

South side, group of three windows from the inside and the outside.

Looking west, 3 patchwork style windows and above alternating glass & alabaster windows following the gable line. View from inside and outside, note the carving of pine cones and animals around the larger window.

On the east wall of the nave, above, you can see some of the incredible carvings that Sarah designed and commissioned. The pulpit (bottom right in photo) of a stump and palm tree from bog oak, is particularly great as is the row of angels and trees above the arch. Some of the alabaster, for example the lotus flower candlesticks on the alter, was carved by Sarah herself, the other carvings were done by local crafts people.

The apse is really beautiful, with orange painted walls and globes of amber glass set into niches. My favourite section, shown below, combines a curved painted wall with pierced alabaster windows depicting fossils found in Cumbrian coal mines. It's a wonderful combination of complex wall drawing with a simple pattern of light and shadow in elegant elongated arches around the top of the semi circle and under a lovely wooden ceiling.