Our ever-collecting client, just because he liked it, had bought a 19th century window from an auction house in Paris, France.
The trouble was, it was the wrong shape and too short by 10 inches for the particular place he had in mind within his ornate lakeside villa.
Here’s a shot of the fitting …
You spend weeks and months on the design – moving from tiny black-and-white sketches to 1:10 half-toned approximations; and then onwards to a full-sized water-colour painting, plus a full-sized black-and-white tonal drawing (to give a clear instruction to us painters about where the light must pass through really clearly) …
And then you finally come to cut the glass, and paint it, and silver-stain it, and also plate it (in order to create the perfect colour as you see it in your mind), then you paint and silver-stain the plating.
At last the piece is encased in lead, with neatly mitred joints to show each graphic angle. Cemented and polished. Fitted in its various frames with steel armatures.
So, tonight, it lies “finished” and strapped against our A-frames, in readiness for tomorrow’s installation, but – exactly because it is an architectural piece – until tomorrow, when we fit it, who knows what this window really is?
That is our responsibility as designers and painters of stained glass. Responsibility to the donor and his memories and his loss. Responsibility to the building itself. And responsibility to the people who will enter the building, each with their own particular memories and their own particular loss.
These unimaginable things matter – nothing else.
There is a mind-numbing and irritating consensus which insists that stained glass paint should be fired between successive layers. This silly idea is found in any number of so-called instructional books on stained glass painting techniques.
It’s wrong, of course. And here’s a short wordless video which proves the point!