silk purse, sow's ear

Although it is true that you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, I really don’t believe in the concept that this proverb expresses especially when applied to the making of stained glass. I’ve always used old scraps of glass - scratched, industrial, too thick or too thin - to paint on. I use old jars of powdered enamel that people have given me and ancient pots of iron oxide that I don’t spend hours grinding down (as I was advised when studying). I use these same materials when I run glass workshops, most recently for Arts Together in five different venues in Wiltshire, previously described on my blog here and here. So I’m not being critical of other people’s work when I describe the process of making a stained glass panel out of their painted scraps of glass in terms of the silk purse and the sow’s ear, but I feel as if this is what I have done with the discarded bits from the workshop sessions (above).

This small panel is a nice reminder for me of the project and the people who made the pieces, which were mostly samples to try out the painting techniques. It is also a reverse of the participants panels, which go from a dark centre to a bright and light border, as it spirals from a dark edge to a clear centre. I’ve laid out the group members’ finished panels below, all 71 of them, categorised mostly by subject matter.

Annunciations

Left; The Annunciation by Master of the Judgement of Paris (active 1400-1450) in the Courtauld Gallery.

Right; The Annunciation, XVIII century, in the Montefalco Museum, Umbria.

The Annunciation, where the angel Gabriel tells the Virgin Mary that she will conceive a son by the power of the Holy Spirit, is an instantly recognisable and compelling scene. In the best versions of it there is drama in the meeting between the two figures which takes place in an interesting room or a beautiful garden. Often the figures are framed by pillars between the two of them, as in the lovely Annunciation in The Courtauld Gallery (above left) painted in the fifteenth century. A version I like even more is a less sophisticated one that I photographed in the art gallery of a small town in Umbria (above right). Here there are rays of light in three different places and an uninterrupted space between the figures in the centre of the picture.

The other versions here are all in stained glass. I’m not showing every one in my collection of annunciation photos but rather a selection in chronological order of the best I’ve seen so far.

Left: reassembled old glass (possibly early XVI century) in St Thomas Church, East Shefford, Berkshire.

Right; above the north aisle east window in All Saints Church, Middleton Cheney, Northants by William Morris, 1880.

The first (above left) consists of reassembled fragments on a background of white quarries where the angel Gabriel is missing and the rays of light with the dove from the Holy Spirit seem to be sending their message straight to Mary’s listening ear. The second (above right) was designed by William Morris and is one of several copies of this same design. There is no dove or ray of light, but there are the lilies to symbolise purity and the book in Mary’s hand. The setting is a luscious garden, which makes this version, set high up in the wall, the most beautiful one.

Two versions from 1945 (below) share many similarities despite a great difference in scale. Like in the Morris window there are Gabriel’s red wings and Mary’s posture with one hand raised. The figures stand on a scroll, and above is that dead straight beam, or beams, of light in silver stain with leaded edges. This seems to me such a heavy-handed way of representing light in a medium which is all about the transmission of light.

Left; St Mary Church, Fordington, Dorchester, by Powell & Sons 1945.

Right; St Frideswide Church, Frilsham, Berkshire, by Joseph E. Nuttgens 1945.

St Mary Church, Twyford, Hampshire. Nativity west window with detail from The Annunciation by Moira Forsyth, 1965.

A version by Moira Forsyth from the 1960s (above) is part of a large west window. Here, the beam of light is not so bad as it’s actually lighter than the blue background, with more fluid lines than those in Forsyth’s characteristic crosshatching that covers practically every other piece of glass. The figures have no architectural or horticultural background, they are part of a larger story in the setting of the nativity window but the connection between the angel Gabriel and Mary isn’t really there.

In the 1980s John Hayward version (below) they are also separated by the window mullion, but the figures seem drawn together by all the other elements in the composition. This scene is predominantly gold rather than blue, the drapery, wings and hands are again finely painted. This one contains almost all the elements usually found in a picture of The Annunciation - dove, beam of light, book and blue gown - but no lily. The only constant I’ve found in all the versions is the order of the figures, the angel on the left and Mary on the right.

Christ Church, Swindon, Wiltshire. Annunciation window by John Hayward 1987 and detail.

The New Cathedral

Lidl facade (are supermarkets the new cathedrals?)

Installation day at Lidl, Berwick Green, South Gloucestershire.

I did a series of opaque window vinyls for a Lidl store in South Gloucestershire, where an art commission is a planning permission requirement, in 2017 (see link here) and again this year. In both cases these are not really windows, which I found depressing until a comment from an ultra positive friend who pronounced these architectural features to be “a lovely idea”. I certainly don’t often get the chance to work on such an exhilaratingly large scale.

Both windows installed. Each panel measures 4.62 × 1.14 metres.

My design presents a series of windows, slightly changing in colour, with views of a waterside path and a road bordered by local views under a cloudy sky. The sequence is broken up by the actual window frames and, as a counterpoint, by columns of trees where the colour scheme is reversed. The details are taken from my drawings of the area which is on the north west edge of Bristol and contains a network of routes, both visible and historical. Not only roads and motorways, but also a rail network, an airfield and a stream that I followed down to the River Avon.

View from across the A4018

Computer screen shot of the design

Because the windows will mostly be viewed by car passengers rather than pedestrians, it is the overall design and the colour scheme that is the most crucial. The colours on my illuminated screen (above) are never exactly the same as the printed version which exists in the real world with changing light conditions and the occasional reflection, apart from that there is no difference between the design and the vinyl artwork. I’m happiest with the top section where you can see - although you’ll need binoculars or a zoom lens - a row of buildings wedged between cloudy vegetation and a six lane highway.

Detail, on the screen and on the window.

Church Of St Alban, Westbury Park, Bristol

Outer door, Inner door and inside the Church of St Alban, Westbury Park.

This is a church built beside an older one (still standing) that the congregation in the Bristol suburb of Westbury Park, had outgrown. The architect was CFW Denning, it was completed in 1915 with furnishings and stained glass in every window added over the following two decades. As a result the interior is cohesive and true to the arts and crafts ideals, with modest entrance doors, stone walls and wooden chairs amid the evidence of regular use by local groups. The designer of most of the wonderful stained glass in the church was Arnold Robinson, a pupil of Christopher Whall, who worked with and then bought the stained glass firm Joseph Bell & Son of Bristol. The east window (below and above right)) glitters with complementary purples, greens and browns and is crammed with detail - from rainbows and cherubs at the top to realistic figures of contemporary servicemen, with nurses, at the bottom.

The east window and detail , designed by Arnold Robinson, 1920.

Three windows in the north wall, two by Arnold Robinson, the third by Florence Camm.

Six of the nave windows are also by Robinson, on the north wall there is one by Florence Camm (1929) that fits in well with the general style although it’s very different in its decorative detailing. The details in Robinson’s windows show an interesting mix of pastel coloured streaky glass in chunky borders and characters in the nativity window that are taken from sources as diverse as Raphael’s Madonna della Seggiola (below left) and a toddler straight out of a 1920s popular illustration (below right).

Details from the nativity window (in the centre of the photo of the north wall).

South transept window by Margaret Chilton, 1915, and detail.

The window that is contemporary with the building of St Alban’s is a tall lofty one in the south transept by Margaret Chilton. It depicts classically dressed craftsmen working on the building, one holding up a model of it. The lower sections with eccentric leading, little squares of colour and finely drawn wild flowers has got a very Charles Rennie Mackintosh look about it, this window dates to three years before Chilton’s move to Glasgow.

Window 1 on the south wall and detail.

Continuing from that window along the south side of the nave are four more Robinson windows, all set in deep craggy recesses with sills covered in plastic sheets for groups of white candles. There are wonderful things to be found in all of these - in the first window there are little people processing towards the open door (above centre) and the handpainted note in memory of a local 2nd lieutenant (above right), a reminder of the boom in stained glass memorial windows caused by World War 1.

Window 2 on the south wall and detail.

The second window again has finely drawn flowers in the border, and clustered around the missionary Ruth Salisbury are a group of realistic, attentive children (above). The third window is in memory of a couple who were benefactors of St Alban’s, the details I picked out in this one are another group of little people including two sweet babies, and a walled town in the background (below).

Window 3 on the south wall and detail.

Window four (below) is a scene of the Revelation, with a wonderful sea shore, an angel with a visionary globe, a harp, a sword and a dedication to another young local 2nd lieutenant killed in the war.

Window 4 on the south wall and detail.

Looking west, windows by Arnold Robinson.

Coming to the west end of the church (above) are a pair of windows by Robinson from 1925, where pastel coloured angels soar above a nativity scene and an ascending figure of Christ. The ordered composition, pale backgrounds and geometric rays of light are in great contrast to the colourful riot of the Te Deum east window. Finally, in the baptistry and now cut off by a glass partition, are two smaller pairs of windows of small people, or cherub children with realistic heads (below). They are the work of Margaret Chilton, given by members of the Mothers’ Union in 1915. The font has been moved out of this space which is now a play area. I wonder if this was because the images of the cherub children were considered disturbing, or even confusing because of the popular belief that the dead turn into angels, whereas in Christian doctrine they are two different things. It’s hard to imagine this sort of imagery, thought provoking and poignant in a time of war, being allowed anywhere near a baptistry these days.

Two pairs of windows inside the baptistry by Margaret Chilton 1915.

Christmas Cards Year 10

Our mantlepiece with the favourite cards on display.

This is the 10th year of my Christmas card statistics where I sort them into categories that have remained pretty consistent over the years. For example more than half of the cards we received were square, just over a third were handmade and the most popular subject matter was a snow scene. A category that caught my eye this year was the white border, common to forty percent of our cards. On the mantelpiece (above) are a selection of the best, on the right is one I particularly enjoyed - a cottage to make up with a paper tree attached, it’s one of three cards in the ‘shaped’ category.

Classic Christmas Tree category.

In terms of subject categories, we had 24% that were mostly tree, examples are shown above including the lovely red square one on the right. Another classic category is the star or candle (10%) , with examples that are mostly homemade, shown below.

Classic Shining Light category.

I’m still surprised by the decline of cards with nativity scenes (down to 8%) or reproductions of well known art works, I would say there were none of those this year. Instead we got rows or groups of animals (below) - jolly robins, spooky horses and hares in wooly jumpers.

Groups of animals - some in wooly jumpers.