New Front Door Window

I’ve just installed a design for an actual window, the first in quite a while. It felt good to be working out a design for the constraints of a shape, long and thin, and the clients’ preferences, simple, blue and with a touch of the organic. Once I got back into the stride of architectural glass design as opposed to making exhibition pieces, all went well. You can see the final design as it progressed in the drawings on my studio wall below.

Full size designs, 1320 x 150 mm, drawn in this order (from left to right) 5, 4, 1, 2, 3

Samples, enamel and sandblasting on glass.

The glass samples (above) I made at the end of this stage show the basic idea, a pattern of triangles with two stems of plants growing in the gaps between them. The detail comes from the intersection of the stems and the triangle points, you get thin lines of clear glass in the outlines of the leaves while the white triangles are sandblasted and therefore opaque.

The window is in a front door and is double glazed. We realised that you could get a more interesting effect by using both panes of glass with parts of the design on each pane, something I’ve done before, so that the two layers shift against each other as you move around, as in the two layered samples I made next (below).

Samples on two layers of glass.

Front door with design in vinyl - left: first layer inside, centre: second layer outside, right: both layers from the inside.

However, our plans had to change with the news that we couldn’t change the double glazed unit in the front door without getting a whole new front door (because of warranty not technical issues). We decided it was fine to go with the design printed on vinyl, that is adhesive window film, instead. As you can see above, the new window looks completely different from the outside and the inside, with a different part of the design printed on the interior and the exterior film. Although the colour printed on the vinyl is not as transparent as the blue and green enamels would have been the window does the job of providing privacy in the hallway while letting you know who is at the front door.

Details of completed window, 2 layers of vinyl.

The Cloud of Unknowing

This is the poster for our exhibition at Norwich Cathedral, as you can see from the dates it has just finished. Despite the lower visitor numbers to the cathedral and the extra restrictions imposed during the second lockdown we felt lucky to be showing anywhere this year. The exhibition centred around a series of panels made during lockdown when I turned some of Ray’s drawings into stained glass. Although we have worked alongside each other for over thirty years, we have never collaborated or exhibited together before.

Wall of glass: Four cabinets of glass panels with samples and drawings on the lower shelves & two larger panels on easels.

The basic idea was to have a wall of Ray’s black and white paintings meeting a wall of my coloured glass panels. These panels were the ones I made during lockdown and will be familiar to readers of my blog. At the far end were the self portraits, at the near end were the collaborative pieces, and in the middle was the series of enamelled decorative panels called "‘Theme and Variations’. On the bottom shelves were enamelled samples from previous projects which showed up well just lying on white paper and on the shelves above were print outs of my blog entries which describe the making of my glass panels.

Cabinets 1&2: Self portraits, fragments, glass paints and the start of the Theme and Variations series.

Cabinets 2,3&4. Theme and Variations and the collaborative panels.

I thought visitors to the cathedral would be interested to learn about the technical side of stained glass, as the guides and volunteers you get in such places are always more interested in a window’s history and iconography. In the cabinets I showed samples of all the types of glass paint I use (yes - it’s still called stained glass even if it’s heavily painted), the tools of the trade and a new panel in progress. I made this just before the exhibition opened and I’ve been looking forward to seeing it again as I think it may be an important bridge between the work I’ve been copying from Ray and my own artistic path (below).

Panel in Progress: Left, glass pieces cut, painted and fired. Right, in the exhibition showing the leading up process.

Wall of black and white pictures: 46 paintings in indian ink & egg tempera on gesso hanging together in a cloud. 

“The pictures are written from scratch, I have no idea what they are going to be when I start. I have displayed them in groups on the wall forming clouds which you can see as a whole. But if you look harder you can always see something else in the cloud whether it is a camel, a weasel or a whale.” Ray Ward

Ray decided to hang his paintings, a recent series of egg tempera and indian ink on gesso, in a cloud formation hanging from a hidden bar where the wall meets the ceiling. A lovely shadow was created by the shape, which swayed slightly in front of the ancient stones and flints. One reason for hanging the paintings like this was to provide a space for the titles to be written up, large enough to read from a distance. Covid restrictions led to this solution which proved to be a lot better than the handouts you might normally provide as it put the words alongside the pictures, forming verses in your head:

Why are girls so obsessed with cats I really don’t think there’s much we can do. The problem is everything will be alright They’re wrong I’m more scared of success then failure. We will talk but have nothing to say The wind plays recalling madness, heartless cold reproof. Is anyone here enjoying this? An echo is not a reply.

A full catalogue of Ray Ward’s work in the exhibition can be found on his website, link here