Continuing our short series on how we glass painters can sometimes escape – or do I mean, disguise? – the leaden bonds which hold us.

As always there’s a catch.

It’s only for those wise subscribers to our most excellently acclaimed free e-mail newsletter.

Sign up here.
Mephistopheles Stephen

"Where did I come from?"

How does a stained glass design evolve?

With a precedent, that’s for sure.

All the same, it’s important to know when to stop …

Here’s a small step-by-step gallery from the studio case book.

Leaf through the images and read the captions.

Click a photo to show next.

There’s also a Back button, top-left.

Knowing when to stop

This post is a partial answer to a series of question from an esteemed colleague in France.

Norman – sorry for the delay in writing back! We do take all questions seriously and with great interest. It sometimes takes time to present the full answer.

We’ll say more on another occasion.

For now, we’ll conclude with the observation that ladle and keys are attributes of Saint Martha.

So is a broom.

But we know when to stop …

Horse before the Cart

Right now the next bit is really important to your work.

If you’re going to follow Picasso’s advice and steal, it’s essential you do things the right way round.

Know what you want.

Then go out and find it.

David knew from the dimensions how he had to have a half-kneeling figure.

He also knew there was no way I was going to dress up and model for him on this occasion.

It has been known. My greatest role to date is the Blessed Nicholas Wheeler.

Despite the success of the studio, I am always open to offers.

So we ransacked our art books until we found a suitable image.

I’m so glad we did.

Otherwise just imagine the initial sketch design:

"The things I get to do ...!"

“Plating” is the leading up of two or more glasses of the same shape, one behind the other.

Here’s what E. Liddall Armitage has to say on the matter:

“Some artists resort to plating and even tend to boast about it, but it is best avoided” (Stained Glass, Leonard Hill Books Limited, London, 1960, p. 130).

He presents two arguments. First, that it is unsound craftsmanship. Second, that medieval glass is beautiful and never, ever plated.

Before discussing these arguments, we must make an admission of special interest here.

Namely, that the soon-to-be-installed Hereford window is plated over maybe one-third of its area.

Painted, silver stained and plated glass on the glazing shelf, awaiting glazing ...

Even stained glass moves on …

We can easily side-step Liddall Armitage’s second argument.

After all, it is too general. This is now the 21st century. We can all admire medieval glass without being honour-bound never to innovate beyond that which was achieved during the 12th and 13th centuries.

But unsound craftsmanship – that’s a serious charge to make.

Unsound – or not?

Liddal Armitage raises three concerns:

1. There is always the risk of one of the pieces cracking
2. It is difficult to prevent cement from running between the two pieces of glass
3. There is likely to be condensation between the two pieces of glass

Here are our thoughts:

1. There is always the risk of any glass cracking, whether plated or not. Plating in itself does not increase this risk (whereas, of course, poor firing and/or clumsy handling certainly do)
2. It’s easy (although time-consuming) to seal the glass with copper-foil or similar, and thereby stop cement from running between them. Context permitting (see below) it is also possible to use putty, not cement, to give rigidity to the window
3. Most modern buildings, unlike medieval churches, are double-glazed. So, once you’ve settled the question of how to fix the stained glass against the double-glazing on the inside, condensation is not likely to be a problem, least ways when the double-glazing has been properly done

Context

More and more, all of us who design and paint stained glass will have to come to terms with fixing our work against double-glazing.

Yes, it often impoverishes the outside aspect. But there’s no point being precious here. It’s the way the world is.

As it happens, the outside aspect is not a consideration in Hereford’s case: the keepers of the crematorium don’t want people peeping in while others mourn. So we can use the glazing in our favour.

Also, the external glazing exactly means we have little to fear from condensation, so therefore plating is an option (as is hand-puttying, because the external double-glazing is protecting the stained glass from weather and wind).

And why then did we chose to plate? Why might you sometimes choose to plate?

Why plate?

Here’s the commonest reason:

People most often plate because that’s the best way to achieve a very particular shade or tint

This is perfectly understandable. So much glass is machine-made that there is not now the accidental and lovely variety we once found when all glass was made by hand. We have sacrificed beauty for predictability. Plating, in some measure, can restore the subtle vocabulary that modern production methods have lost.

But that wasn’t our reason.

Our reason was all to do with design, painting and silver-staining.

By “design”, we don’t just mean the physical cartoons which convince the client and which serve as our map and compass whilst we are cutting and working the glass.

No, “design” also has a larger meaning here, because no drawing or painting on paper can fully express what must eventually be done on glass in order for the glass to be faithful to the underlying artistic idea.

Here’s what happened with us on this specific project.

As we worked the glass, we saw that some painting simply had to be pushed back further than could be achieved simply by painting on the back of a single piece of glass.

Thus, whilst the traced lines and some shading were painted on the front of the first piece of glass, some shading simply had to be painted on the front of the second piece of glass.

With silver stain, our argument was different.

You see, we have a range of clear, slightly-textured Polish glass which stains exquisitely and with as much subtlety as you could desire.

What’s more, it’s also predictable.

Now predictability is useful exactly because some glass and colours, by virtue of their chemical composition, range from being difficult to impossible to stain.

But, with the help of this clear and subtly textured Polish plating, we knew we could chose whatever colour we needed for the first piece of glass – and always be confident that we could add the effect of silver stain to the second piece.

Installation

Glass on the easel awaiting glazing, and it's "wait and see" for now

This happens in a few weeks’ time.

We’re confident of our assessment. But we’re just the designer-painters. It’s other people who count. And what really matters is the effect of the glass on their emotions.

Yes, crematoria are difficult. Unlike churches, whoever heard of something happy happening there?

So it’ll also be interesting to see if the donor gets his way and is allowed to hold a “swinging party” there – which will be after-hours of course.

Here’s an interesting story from our our colleague, Ebel Rispens, who lives in Groningen in The Netherlands.

It’s in response to our recent post about sunlight and stained glass design.

Ebel writes:

It’s a fact that Piet Mondrian never ever made or designed a stained glass window.

And do you know why?

He refused to have anything to do with stained glass because he thought it was one of the ugliest things that anyone could do with colours …

Well, I am sure we’ve all seen some stained glass windows which make us wish that Thomas Cromwell were alive today.

And I am also sure it’s sometimes fun to make provocative and witty remarks.

Yet I only need to walk around some of the art on display in London’s Tate Modern to remind myself why we are glad to practice a craft.

As with mainstream art, so with the craft of stained glass: it’s often the content and the design which appear to transcend rational appraisal, and – worse – simply become the victim of fashion.

But at least there are clear standards about whether a stained glass window has been skilfully painted and assembled.

At least the making is subject to objective scrutiny and judgment.

And at least this process of making something well is something which demands to be enjoyed for its own sake – even when it happens to be your livelihood.

The Journalist Rings

Bless her, she’d been asked to write an article for next February’s Homes & Gardens (and she’d rung us five months early because she knew how busy we get …):

“I’m writing about buying and using stained glass and I’ve been looking at your website with great interest …

(What a lovely journalist, I thought.)

… I need to find out about the various options available to buy, and also who can restore them …

… Can you help me please?”

Her voice was friendly enough, but I must admit I was immediately on my guard.

Like you, I’ve seen plenty of cases where words have mysteriously changed their context, or had their qualfications left out, and that’s the last thing anyone needs when the subject’s stained glass restoration.

So we proceded as gingerly as Kennedy and Khrushchev discussing missile placements on the lovely island of Cuba.

And one of things we talked about was how stained glass can be re-sized.

It’s a familiar problem.

A piece made for one particular setting has been removed and must now be made to fit a new setting.

And I was duly reminded of this classic example from our casebook of stained glass adventures and challenges.

The Loving Couple

Some time back, our client approached us with two magnificent pieces of painted stained glass. Here’s one of them:

"Please make me 60 inches taller!"

Naturally, this elegant gentleman was accompanied by a demurely blushing damsel.

The task:

To transform these two pieces, each one measuring 12 inches across by 18 inches high,  into a pair of stained glass windows, each one measuring 26 inches across by 78 inches high.

Now, to perform this kind of operation, you have to respect the spirit of the original, whilst also taking into account the new location.

If I tell you that the new location was an ornately gilded dressing room within an 18th century mansion across the sea on mainland Europe, then you’ll see that a great many options were swiftly ruled out.

Our client being a person of considerable influence, we gave the matter our deepest thought.

And then we remembered our priceless book of leaded light designs from 1615.

Our personal copy dates from 1895. Here’s the splendid frontispiece:

How we found inspiration in an ancient Manuscript (and you can too)

Let me translate:

Book of sundry drafts

principally serving for glaziers

and not impertinent for plasterers and gardeners

besides sundry other professions

Surely this 400-year old collection of leaded lights would prove to be our inspiration!

We spent a happy hour reminding ourselves of these exquisite designs.

And then we came across this one here:

"Eureka!"

We were away!

The first task was, with surgical precision (not to mention our ruler and set square), to use the original scale drawing to map out the full-sized cut-line. (Those of you who’ve mapped out “simple” diamond quarries will know that a job like this takes time and patience.) You can see here how, in the middle, we prepared a space for the original stained glass (from which we had taken a “rubbing”):

The full-sized cut-line

The second task was, with equal care, to cut the glass. Here we used glass that was made specially for us by our nearby glass blower. (Machine-rolled glass would all have been too uniform and lifeless.)

Finally, the assembly: with a geometric pattern like this one, the leading had to be exact …

Careful leading for ...

… with neatly abutting leads (or else the soldering will fail):

... a client of considerable Influence

Once cemented and polished, we had a look:

Finished

Our lips began to quiver. Our eyes went moist. We knew the day would soon come when we would be obliged to return the glass to its rightful owner.

It never gets any easier to say goodbye!

At least these windows had once been ours to look at.

Original Designs from 1615

It’s no exaggeration to say these designs are extraordinary.

Just imagine if more stained glass windows had such richness and complexity.

Are you interested?

The light was heavenly here the other day – just as David was working on a water-colour design in our stained glass Studio #2 …

Sunlight in the studio at Stanton Lacy

But that’s not in fact the water-colour you see right there.

What you’re looking at is the full-sized black-and-white predecessor of the final full-colour design.

The actual water-colour is on a bench to the right and tantalizingly out of view.

(Well, our clients haven’t seen it yet. So you too, dear friends, must exert due patience!)

We’ve found this to be a most useful three-stage way of preparing our stained glass designs.

1. A small sketch which reveals the broad geometry of the window – you can just see this pinned to the left-hand timber post.
2. A full-sized design in black-and-white (graphite) that articulates the precise geometry and also specifies all the tonal details (vital for the glass painting and silver-staining that we do).
3. A full-sized water-colour design which the client sees and – within the limits of the medium (light-reflective paper) – understands to give a good impression of how their glass will eventually look.

At each stage, there’s plenty of time for conversations with our clients, so that everyone knows that all the hundreds of individual ideas are taking shape and coming together.

Canny eyes amongst you will note there’s colour in the border of the black-and-white design.

Yes, indeed.

Not just ordinary colour, but stolen colour.

Stolen from a Mondrian in fact.

Some call this “theft”. We call it “inspiration” and “hommage”.

A fine line, of course. And it’s one that we tread carefully.

We naturally informed our clients.

Larceny, yes – sometimes.

Fraud, deception and “passing off”, most definitely not!

Such, at any rate, will be the substance of our defence should we one day get a knock on the studio doors from some ferret-t00thed attourney for the New York Museum of Modern Art …