The Brief

The proposed windows are designed to form a series. The brief was never formally defined but came about as a result of several meetings between the Revd Tom Montgomery and myself.

I felt it would be appropriate and in keeping with the other windows and the architecture to create a series of figurative windows inclining towards a Romanesque style.

The themes that we discussed were the Last Supper, The Garden of Gethsemane and the Supper at Emmaus.

The hands in the foreground represent Christ, and therefore each window indicates a scene from His standpoint. The colours are used to symbolically and there is some kind of distance and separation between Christ and the others. We felt that it wood be appropriate to have the figures not in traditional clothing associated with Biblical times but to be timeless.

This window contains the hands of Christ offering the gathered disciples bread and wine. The table is laid out with a large bowl located in the middle surrounded by 12 smaller bowls one of which is put of alignment. There is a symbolic shadow of the cross on the table and the dominant colour is red. The main group of disciples are gathered together and participating, in the background the other major theme of this occasion is symbolized as Judas leaves the group.

Trying to convey the feeling of the Garden at night with the hands of Christ bound by thorns and surrounded by passion flowers. The rocks form a barrier to the sleeping disciples in the background. Above, surrounded by olive leaves is the symbol of hands holding a cup and the full moon. The dominant colours being; deep blues, violets and turquoise.

This window shows the moment when Christ broke the bread and the disciples who had accompanied Him from Jerusalem became aware who their travelling companion had been. This is then a window celebrating the Resurrection and the palms are included to symbolically indicate the victory over death itself.

Techniques

I like to have a certain purify in the methods I employ to create windows. I like permanence in the works I make and therefore use methods that are appropriate.

All of the coloured windows will be made using mouth blown flashed glass.
This glass has 2 layers, a thin coloured layer on top of a thicker base glass, usually transparent.
The coloured layer can be removed using an acid either in part or completely, creating a wide range of tone within one piece of glass. This is known as etching.
Once the etching is completed, the glass will be painted. Paint refers to traditional black glass paint which creates lines and half tones and which, after painting, the glass must be fired to make the paint adhere to the surface of the glass. This is one of the ancient techniques going back 1000 years.
The final method within the traditional technique is silver-staining. This is again painted on but this time on the reverse side of the glass and when fired, the painted areas become yellow. This ranges in tone from a pale straw colour through bright clear yellow to a deep amber depending upon application and firing.
The windows in the main part of the will be leaded again using the traditional techniques.