Colour, Theme and Variations / September 22, 2020 by Sasha Ward

Version 1, 700 x 540mm and detail showing layers of fired enamel colour.

I had an idea for a new design and, as is my usual practice, worked out the best combination of colours, made a template and set to work on what was to become Version 1 (above). Each transparent enamel was applied differently to give a different texture, I hand painted, sprayed and rolled the paint on. The result looked good, but was not quite what I had in mind so I made some smaller versions to see where the same design in other colour combinations would take me.

Left: Version 2 after first firing. Right: Versions 2,3 & 4 in progress.

Version 2 (above and below left) used the colours I had in mind, pale grey (I haven’t got much of this enamel left) and a more yellowy green mix (not got much green either, so I mix up blue & yellow). With these colours went a paler blue and the pinky foreground that all the versions have in common. Version 3, the narrow panel below, is in an alternative colour scheme I’d drawn up and version 4, below right, used up the leftover enamels in a different combination. You can see these panels on the lightbox above, the first layer of enamel has been fired and is therefore transparent, while the second as yet unfired layer appears opaque.

All together in the window, these panels looked rather like my usual stripey colour samples, and I decided to make some improvements to versions 3 & 4. V3 looked insipid, so I beefed up the colour and added some more sandblasting (below left). V4 was a mess, it needed two trips to the sandblaster and a firing to transform the shapes and take the series off in a new direction.

Paradise Lost / September 4, 2020 by Sasha Ward

This is the drawing (below) used for our first collaborative stained glass panel commissioned as a window, chosen by the clients because of its proportions and its suitability for a bathroom window. It’s a small black and white ink drawing called “There is a Grain of Sand in Lambeth that Satan cannot find” and is based on a famous story told by William and Catherine Blake's friend Thomas Butts. At the end of the Blakes’ garden in Lambeth was a small summer house, and coming to call on them one day Butts was shocked to find the couple stark naked: "Come in!" cried Blake; "it's only Adam and Eve you know!" The Blakes were reciting passages from Paradise Lost, apparently "in character." As is usual in the work of Ray Ward, the inspiration is hidden - it was an added bonus to find out who the characters were when the commission was underway and we were able to decipher the title, which is a quote from Blake’s poem “Jerusalem”.

Ray’s drawing, “There is a Grain of Sand in Lambeth that Satan cannot find” (170 x 275mm) and stained glass interpretation of the same (320 x 600 mm).

The glass was installed in the top half of a ground floor loo window. It provides privacy from next door’s windows without blocking the view of plants on the windowsill. There are two bonus reflections - in the mirror on the left and in the opaque glass door panel to the right in the photo below, and in front of you when you’re seated on the loo.

The panel installed in the bathroom window.

This window uses every type of glass and technique in a sequence of steps that I photographed throughout the process (above) as follows.

Stage 1, the straightforward bit, choosing and cutting the glass. Stage 2, shows the glass pieces laid on top of Ray’s drawing which has been scaled and shifted to fit the window proportions. Stage 3, the first layer of iron oxide painting into lines I’d sandblasted to provide definition. Stage 4, 2nd layer of painting in some areas, pink glass masked out for sandblasting, table and steam lines already blasted out. Stage 5, pink flashed glass sandblasted, took ages! Stage 6, the most fun part was the final painting - silver stain on the chairs, enamel on the mugs, iron oxide on the book and the faces. I traced these directly from Ray’s drawing. As you can see in the detail below, I think I got their expressions quite well. The only elements I changed were on the book, I didn’t mind the crazy perspective but thought I could do with some better lettering, and the shape of the mugs became the type they use in the house which are made by one of its occupants.

In my line of commissioned work I’m used to getting the colours and the composition right for a particular place, but the figurative element in these joint pieces is something I haven’t touched since I was a student. For me, they are all about the people. Ray always denies that there is anything autobiographical going on in his drawings, but we had our portraits taken underneath the window on installation day, just to check.

The Joy of Visiting Unlit Churches / August 6, 2020 by Sasha Ward

North wall of St Peter Everleigh. Built in 1813 in the Gothic style and on an iron frame, with monument to Francis Dugdale Astley Esq. founder and donor of this church.

My trips to churches in the past few years have been generally unplanned, I stop if I pass one that looks as if it may be open and has an easy place to park outside. I had noticed that some of the loveliest, most uncluttered ones I visited were in the care of The Churches Conservation Trust whose website is up to date with current visitor opening times - no need to book!! - so we set off to see a couple of CCT churches near us in Wiltshire.

St Peter Everleigh. Left: East window, Right: South wall of the nave.

The interior of Everleigh church contains nothing ugly apart from those unevenly spaced wall lights on the north wall (top photo). There are wall monuments from the previous church in the village between tall windows with orange borders and a greenish glow from the trees pressing against them outside.

The glass in the east window by W.T. Cleobury is full of beautifully painted detail. I particularly like the mother and child panel (below left), the gaze and the hands of the shepherds point at them from one side and the three kings from the other. The best hand painting I have noticed from a stained glass firm I had never heard of, which is a perfect example of the surprises you get when you use your eyes rather than a guide book.

Everleigh, details of the east window by W.T. Cleobury 1873.

St Mary, Chute Forest. Left: entrance porch, Right: west window by Jones and Willis 1921.

St Mary, Chute Forest, is tucked away in an overgrown churchyard, again with nothing ugly inside or out. It was designed by J.L. Pearson and built in 1875 of brick and flint. The interior, with no electric lighting that we could find, had a perfectly Victorian atmosphere and perfect conditions for stained glass viewing on a drizzly day. The WWI memorial west window is moody, nicely painted and eccentrically repaired at bottom left with gold coloured glass (above right).

Chute Forest, Left: carved reredos in front of east window by Clayton and Bell, Right: window detail.

The east window is a lovely one, made by Clayton and Bell in 1875. The background to all the little scenes showing the life of Christ is covered in a web of sgraffito flowers which looks great against the familiar patterns of brick, tile and architectural ornament. You can find the same patterns and shapes in the church itself - the example below shows a lantern in the top of the left hand window and, in front of one of the deep window recesses, a lantern that reflects the colours of the stained glass.

Chite Forest, Left: top of the left hand window, Right: lantern with stained glass reflection.

Three Squares / July 27, 2020 by Sasha Ward

The small square glass panels I’ve made over the past fortnight were designed as wall panels - you can see them hanging high up on my studio wall (below left). I wanted to try out an invisible fixing which is glued to the back centre of the panel, that part of the glass has to be opaque to hide it.

Left: studio wall with original date stamp design and two glass wall panels at the top. Right: Square One, 265mm sq.

Square One (above right) is a leaded elaboration on the date stamp painted piece I made on XXII.VI.MMXX that looked a bit pointless as a stand alone piece of glass. I added patches of colour to compliment the yellow and remind me of midsummer in the local countryside, with an all important black piece in the middle and a scrap textured with triangles to match the XXs on the yellow ground.

Square Two (below) was designed as an opposite to that geometric piece with organic, slightly out of control shapes in lush sprayed enamel colours that I rarely use all together. I sandblasted the surround and the edges of the glass so they look as if they merge into the wall. The light, bright colours and the different textures achieved by applying the glass paints in a variety of ways show up really well against a white (rather than transparent) background in both of these pieces.

Square Two: detail and full piece on the wall, 260 mm sq.

Left: ‘One Way Out’ ink drawing on plywood by Ray Ward. Right: ‘One Way Out’ glass enamels, 260 mm sq.

The third piece was a continuation of my project to turn Ray’s drawings into glass panels (see my previous posts for more examples). The drawings have been going so easily into stained glass versions, but I wanted to try one using my usual enamelling and sandblasting techniques. I intended to give the figure (above left) a solid centre to hide the fixing, but that was one of the things that didn’t really work out. I saw how unpredictable the enamel colours, used in layers, can be as my gold turned green and the hand painted streaks looked so watery that I resorted to sandblasting stripes across the whole background. The result - 6 firings later - is the panel (above right) displayed in the window not on the wall.

Left: panel before firing no. 5. Right: reverse side of finished glass panel.

Studio window / July 13, 2020 by Sasha Ward

Do you ever get sick of the sight of your own work? In my case, samples and fragments of it are sitting on shelves in my window, blocking a view of our beautiful garden. The up side is that even in the gloom of a winter afternoon (above) there were interesting coloured reflections cast on the work I was doing on the lightbox. As this piece of work was a geometric composition, I ended up with a window full of striped colour samples and a more coordinated look in the studio (below). However, I was tired of that look and resolved, as we were going into lockdown, that I would end up with a completely different window at the end of it.

I found an autumnal photo with no coloured glass on the shelves from another year when I must have needed a change (above) and one from the following spring where I had painted the shape of one of the pink leafed plants on to a sample I was doing for a house in Italy (below).

Further back in time (above) I had the shelves in the same positions and a similar mix of geometric test strips and slightly organic patterns which were sample pieces for the commissions on the go. I recognise fragments from a wall panel for St James Hospital in Leeds, a plane propellor from Pegasus House in Bristol and colour variations for windows in Liverpool and Derbyshire. I only remember one occasion when I wanted to fill all four windows with samples (below). This was the last time we held an open studio event and the samples were labelled showing which commission they were made for. (Ten years ago I thought this was a terrible picture of me, now I can only see how much younger I look.)

Which brings me to the same window today and work that does look pretty different from anything I’ve put in front of it before (below). There are two main themes; self portraits which are on the bottom shelf and which I think I’ve done enough of for now, and stained glass panels from Ray Ward’s drawings which are on the top shelf and which I’ve described in previous blog posts. These have been a welcome return to making leaded panels and this is something I hope to continue doing both to commission and for exhibition.