Lady Margaret School

The Bird Window by Sasha Ward

A record I got for Christmas almost fifty years ago. The whole window in St Mary's Church, Selborne, Hampshire. Designed by A Gascoygne, made by Horace T Hinks, 1920.

There is a unique bird window in St Mary’s Church, Selborne, the Hampshire village where the eigtheenth century naturalist Gilbert White lived for most of his life (above right). It shows St Francis preaching to the birds and depicts every bird, I counted 67 different species, mentioned in White’s Natural History of Selborne. Painted in accurate detail, I know these birds well from the cover of a record I’ve had since I was a teenager. Because the record cover designer has cunningly omitted the uninspiring figure of St Francis in the middle of the window and the standard canopies and predella panels surrounding the scene, it was a surprise to see that the actual window is only remarkable if you look closely - how apt for a window about bird watching.

The other unique bird window that I’d wanted to see for a while is the only known work in stained glass by the artist William Nicholson (below left). This window, in the Somerset village of Mells, is also dedicated to St Francis, and is a memorial to John Francis Fortescue Horner of Mells Manor, commissioned by his widow Frances who knew Nicholson as well as many other leading artists of the time. It’s a window with a dynamic composition, where circles radiate from Mary’s halo and fish become birds as they rise to the top of the tracery. The window was painted by Nicholson assisted by Barbara Batt (or the other way round?) a 21 year old student from the Central School of Art who clearly knew what she was doing in terms of glass painting.

St Francis window in St Andrew's Church, Mells, Somerset, and detail of Mary with baby Jesus. Designed by William Nicholson, painted by Nicholson and Barbara Batt at The Glass House in London, 1930.

St Francis from The Selborne window, St Francis from the Mells window.

It is interesting to compare aspects of these two windows, like the figure of St Francis with the same hairstyle and hand position, but painted so differently (above). The treatment of the lettering particularly shows these differences of style. The paintwork in the 1920 Selborne window is so neat that it looks stencilled, while the writing on red glass, so unusual in its placement at the bottom left corner of the 1930 Mells window, is confidently hand written, scratched through two layers of iron oxide paint (below).

Birds and lettering at St Francis' feet, Selborne. Dedication panel from the Mells window.

The birds themselves are the stars of both windows. In a section (below left) of the Selborne window you have three overlapping blackbirds surrounded by, clockwise from centre left, song thrush, yellowhammer, cuckoo, blue tit, house sparrows, nuthatch, wallcreeper, woodcock and kingfishers on a lush green background painted in the same detailed style. Whereas the birds in the Mells window are not identifiable. A section (below right) from the centre of the window shows a variety of bird shape and detail in the most subtle colour scheme with bands of light in the background that are spokes of the radiating circles that hold the design together.

Blackbirds from the Selborne window. Unidentified birds in the middle of the Mells window.

My first public commission on the cover of AN 1987. Full size drawing of one of the painted birds in the design.

When I saw a call out to make a bird window for Lansdowne Hospital in Cardiff soon after I graduated from the Royal College of Art in 1986 I had no doubt that the commission had my name written on it (above). I hadn’t come across many other contemporary stained glass artists who were comfortable drawing birds. More bird windows followed, including one for my old school (below) - the size of the glass pieces I painted the birds on increased with the size of my new kiln. Bird windows were so popular that I had to include birds in designs where I would have preferred not to, until I stopped doing them altogether. In addition to the aforementioned record cover, my way of depicting birds was influenced by the collection I had of birds on postage stamps and from drawing stuffed, not moving ones. My clients are still asking for bird windows and I think I’m ready to have another go, this time taking with me some influences from Nicholson, whose birds don’t perch but move and fly.

My second public commission (1988) in the chapel at Lady Margaret School, London S.W.6. and bird detail from it.

Thirty Year Old Enamel by Sasha Ward

Chapel window for L.M.S. 2.4m x 1.2m. & detail of central panels. Recent photos after cleaning.

Chapel window for L.M.S. 2.4m x 1.2m. & detail of central panels. Recent photos after cleaning.

My first large commission, in 1987, was for my old school, Lady Margaret School in Parson's Green, London. This commission for the chapel marked the school's seventieth anniversary, so for the occasion of the 100th birthday party I decided to revisit and give the window a good clean. No reflection on the cleaning regime at the school, it's just that I have seen what can happen to an unprotected enamel surface over the years, particularly in damp conditions. In this case, the window looked dull and opaque because of the build up of a patina on its surface, but the window was dry and the enamel underneath the grime unharmed, as you can see in the details above and at the bottom of this post. I used cotton wool and the  cleaning paste "astonish" to shine up the greens and yellows. The blue at the top and bottom was always semi opaque and scuffed to look a bit like my water colour design (below).

Left: Original design for the chapel window.  Right: Bottom of the final design (compare with the same section in glass shown above).

Left: Original design for the chapel window.  Right: Bottom of the final design (compare with the same section in glass shown above).

I dug out the design when I got home and remembered that they had initially asked for just the central six panels (above right), then extended the commission to cover the whole window. I reworked the design, swapping the colours around so that I had more of the lovely layered green. On the day of my visit I found the design quite basic, but I think it also looks strong and the geometry works well with the architecture and as a framing device for the birds. I used birds because of my previous commission where this was the stipulated subject matter. My bird shapes and their regular placing in the composition came from my stamp album where stamps were sorted by subject matter rather than country. The bird detail at top left (below) looks like a good copy of Uruguay (below right).

Some of the bird pages in my old stamp album.

Some of the bird pages in my old stamp album.

panel 4.jpg

In these four details you can see the layers of transparent enamel contrasted with areas of silverstain, opaque iron oxide, clear glass and acid-etched details, all in pretty good condition.

Why Do Anything New? by Sasha Ward

1970

1970

This drawing is called "Myself Going to School on the First Morning" and it had a whole page in the school magazine that year. Looking at my old drawing, I find myself transported to the moment I was doing it - I remember the scratchy dip pen, the decision not to finish off the paving pattern and the dots that I used to plan the shapes of the clouds that were supposed to be hidden by the stripy sky. The most authentic details are my lovely new shoes, briefcase and donkey jacket and the most amazing thing is how all the elements that make my artwork particular to me are present in this example. 

The cover of the magazine in that year of my first morning brings back more wallpaper memories. B.H.O. (english teacher) wrote in his editorial; "The School has been redecorated, and we can now well imagine the former elegance of the eighteenth century houses that constitute the School. To commemorate this event, our cover this year is an adaptation of a piece of wallpaper from the entrance hall". This wallpaper is listed as Sanderson's "Rivoli" in the index. The overblown floral shapes on top of irregular stripes are just like something I am designing at the moment.

1974

1974

This drawing, printed on the sort of brown paper I like to use now, has a whole page in the 1974-5 magazine. I  think it's based on observation, in fact I'm pretty sure it's of Caroline Fitt, but I think of this as another self portrait. The detail that amazed me when I saw it again was the horizontal dot pattern. I've tried to limit my use of this as a filler pattern, thinking that I'd picked it up at a later date from looking at Paul Klee. I admire the time it must have taken me to keep the dots varied in shape but not scale, perfect for that scratchy pen. So, why do anything new ? I don't think I could improve on these self portraits now.  

More recent examples of the patterns I used in those early drawings: Left to right: The vertical waves at Langley Green Hospital 2008: The stripy sky at The State Hospital 2009: The dot pattern at Longparish School 2005. Click on photos to enlarge.