Nine Churches in Two Hours / March 17, 2016 by Sasha Ward

A slight exaggeration as I didn't include the time it took to get there and back, one of them was locked and one had become a private house. However these churches are all close together in the vale of Pewsey in Wiltshire - the route was Manningford Bruce, North Newnton, Upavon, Rushall, Charlton St. Peter, Wilsford, Marden, Chirton and Patney. Some of them were so uninviting that you wondered why anyone would want to sit there for more than ten minutes, others had an incredible atmosphere both inside and out.

St. Mary Upavon, locked but this is a Henry Holliday window             St. Matthew's Rushall, window and doorway — St. Mary Upavon, locked but this is a Henry Holliday window St. Matthew's Rushall, window and doorway

My favourite of these churches is St. Matthew's, Rushall, surrounded by fields. The light was streaming in and out through mostly clear windows distorting the winter trees outside. As soon as you see even a slightly bad figurative window (this church has a four seasons one from the 1960s) you wonder why anyone would bother to have anything other than the plainest glass.

It's quite easy to find a nice bit of detail in most of the nine, well seven really, churches that I visited, but that doesn't amount to a good stained glass window. What does, in my opinion, is one that changes the atmosphere inside the church by altering the light using subtle pattern and colour - three examples below, all fantastic.

Manningford Bruce                              North Newnton                                 &… — Manningford Bruce North Newnton Marden

There were also some small (about 1 metre tall) windows that I thought worked in their entirety. Rather than pick out details I want to look at the whole composition and think about the people in them. The Marden window (below right) of Saints Peter and Paul was made by Jasper and Molly Kettlewell in 1958. It is amazing to find such a bold pair of figures looking so 1950ish in a tiny and lovely local church.

Wilsford                                                    Wilsford               &… — Wilsford Wilsford Marden

Our Lady Star Of The Sea / February 27, 2016 by Sasha Ward

The facade of the church from the outside                                                   Looking up at the star from insi… — The facade of the church from the outside Looking up at the star from inside

Our Lady Star of the Sea and St Winefride" is an inviting title for a church in the fabulously named Amlwch, most northerly of all Welsh towns (it's on Anglesey). Built from 1932-37 of concrete, recently repaired but still slightly leaking, it was designed by Giuseppe Rinvolucri, an Italian engineer who married a local girl after coming to Britain as a prisoner of war during World War I.

The shape of the building, between main road and cliff, is supposedly like an upturned ship. The restoration render is black, pierced with strips of glass. A deep star surrounded by a blue mosaic circle is the only decoration on the facade which becomes interesting in itself (however true) if you read the comment below about the construction of the church.

" I think it is worthy of mention how the whole mass of imitation stone frontage was done by one plasterer long gone called Llew (Inja Rock), whose pretty unique style of work is still to be seen elsewhere around town today. He once showed me how it was done, all with a little teaspoon. What patience and what a proven good job to stand the trial of time of 40-plus years without a great deal, if any, remedial work. A sound memorial to a good working man." Robert Jones of Beaumaris from BBC North West Wales 2010

The interior is another one that makes you gasp. More pierced stars and three bands filled with white glass blocks that accentuate the shape of the roof. The only colour is blue paint on the bands and on the reveals of the stars. No clutter above shoulder height - even the lights don't look too bad. The design on the cast glass blocks - repeated and reflected irregular quadrilaterals - is what places this interior firmly in the 1930s. Apparently if the church is lit at night, three beams of light are sent from the glass strips into the sky - I'd love to see even a photo of that phenomenon.

St Richard's Church, Chichester / February 20, 2016 by Sasha Ward

St. Richard's Catholic Church, Chichester, west entrance doors

This church is remarkable for its complete set of dalle de verre windows made in Chartres by Gabriel Loire in 1962. Every window in the church is filled with thick, chipped coloured glass set in concrete and the light inside the church is incredible, we gasped with excitement on entering and were asked to calm down.

Beautiful material quality - for more on the manufacture of the windows go to St. Richard"s Chichester

Rows of high level windows and geometric ceiling decoration. Architects Tomei & Maxwell

I find the appearance of the same windows from inside and outside very interesting. There are some beautiful colour combinations inside - I particularly like the figures in bed in the third window from left (above). There are places where the reds dominate and others where the yellow pieces act as holes for beams of diffused light. The patterns in the composition are what you notice from the outside, the way that the rough cut glass introduces irregularity into a repeat background pattern or row of figures.

The same windows from the outside showing St. Peter leading Apostles: End window with two mysterious negative figures.

There are a few places where the figures are negative - concrete rather than glass. I remember learning how this technique doesn't work in a mosaic because your eyes read the space between coloured fragments as a gap rather than a solid. However it looks great in glass and concrete, showing off the beautiful material quality from inside and out.

Angels surround Mary, inside and outside. Lovely variation in the pattern based on the shapes of the glass pieces. — Angels surround Mary, inside and outside. Lovely variation in the pattern based on the shapes of the glass pieces.

Neutral Tones / February 5, 2016 by Sasha Ward

Samples of glass fired with transparent enamels and oxides in layers.

I wonder if there is such a thing as transparent grey. The question has come up while designing a window which the client would like in neutral tones, like my inky black and white drawings. All the samples I have made so far have too much colour in them, this comes from the metallic elements these powdered enamels are made of. So I thought of watering down an opaque black with a transparent flux, which was the point at which I realised there is no such thing as transparent black, nor therefore transparent grey. All the areas that look grey aren't very transparent, they're full of small black bits suspended in a clear medium. And there is no such thing as transparent white either, which could be why we stained glass people call clear antique glass "white".

Leaded panel using a piece of every different colour in my studio and scraps of neutral.

Colour compositions in stained glass using pieces of transparent coloured glass, like the one above (made by my daughter/work experience student), benefit from a lot of neutrals amongst the bright colours. Sorting through my scrap box I found a selection of neutrals and some opaque black and white - that's as close as it gets to grey. The pieces I was looking at on my lightbox (above right) led me to the words of my favourite Thomas Hardy poem, I can even see the pond and the winter leaves in the glass. It's like that outdoors today.

Rotating Repeats / January 22, 2016 by Sasha Ward

Patterns with curling lines pointing inwards                                                 "Norfolk" plate — Patterns with curling lines pointing inwards "Norfolk" plate

Inspired by looking at dishes, and thinking of painting some myself, I have been drawing patterns that repeat as they rotate. The curling lines I drew started growing into trees. They point towards the middle of the circle as I would draw them if designing a roof light or domed ceiling. However, when I wanted to add a landscape element to the design (as I often do) and looked at the decoration around the edge of the "Norfolk" plate I bought this week, I saw that the right way for the landscape to point around a plate is outwards. (I'm not mad on the flat vignette in the centre).

I've made a number of circular overhead & underfoot commissions. The one I have been reminded of while rotating the repeats this week is from 1997 for Leeds General Infirmary. The abstracted landscape, or cityscape, points inwards on the glass ceiling light and outwards on the lino floor design beneath. The intention was to make the viewer feel as if they were in the centre of things, with the patterns spreading out into space.

Lift lobby, Leeds General Infirmary & preliminary sketches for the glass ceiling light and cut lino floor design, 1997.

The left hand dish sketch below adds a contrasting landscape to my original curling trees. It was then that I realised I needed to turn them around to point outwards resulting in dish sketch number two.