Number 110

A row of windows - view from the outside at night.

Last Monday we delivered, installed and unveiled a row of windows that Rob and Lorna Ryan had commissioned for the front of their workshop in Bethnal Green, London E2. I’ve written about making them in a previous blog post here, all without showing how the design joined up, flying from one end of the sequence to the other where you find the number 110.

Window 1 on the workbench : In my studio window : Windows 1 & 2 installed.

Window 1 (above) is designed around a floating oval which was the last piece of glass I cut. I agonised over which of the streaky colour combinations to use, in the end going for the most vibrant glass I had, golden yellow with green to tie in with the pale green that runs through the design. The painting stage took a long time as I worked out the best way of tying the shapes together with black and grey oxide and enamel painted across the lead lines - you can see this in a ring around the number 110 below and the same pieces of glass on the lightbox before painting and sand blasting. When we installed the last two windows the sun came out casting a shadow of the number on the wall and a flash of the bright pink glass above it.

Window 4, working out the painting : Detail of the number in my studio window : Windows 3 & 4 installed.

A row of windows - view from the inside in the daytime.

Approximately one third of the glass in the row of windows is clear, this maintains their connection to the large windows below them and also to the world beyond the windows with its blocks of flats, tree tops and big patches of sky. Previously the glass in the windows was opaque so now we are letting more of the outside in.

These photos (above and below) show the row of windows in the context of the workshop. It wasn’t too hard to fit in with their aesthetic as I’ve known Rob and Lorna for more than forty years since we were at art college together. If you’re not familiar with Rob Ryan’s work you can find it on this website and there are examples of his drawings and Lorna’s paintings on the green wall in the sitting room (below). Next to the green wall is the curtain made of a patchwork of silk scarves, a wonderful thing that inspired the spirit of my glass design. The blue wall (above) is equally crammed with art - I’m very happy to have my work added to this generous collection of drawings, paintings and photographs by friends and fellow artists.

The sitting room part of the workshop : wall of pictures and window with Rob’s vinyl design and silk scarf curtain.

The unveiling ceremony.

The friends and fellow artists turned up that evening for a proper unveiling ceremony where the wrapping came away without a hitch. The bright lights of the workshop spread a perfectly even light with the bonus of a reflection or two in a big black car bonnet.

Reflections in a car bonnet and invitation card by Rob.

glass patchwork

I’m making a series of windows of which large sections are made out of glass pieces from my scrapbox, patchwork style. I’ve done this lots of times before, but that doesn’t stop the scrap box growing in size, with pieces dating back to the 1980s when I first started painting and firing glass. In my endeavours I’m inspired both by fabric patchwork, which I used to spend a lot of time doing, and by the fragment windows that you see in churches.

Studio lightbox with glass pieces spread over paper window cartoons.

Sorting the pieces, mainly by colour.

Sorting my glass pieces comes easily as I know them so well. I’m ordering them by colour because the pieces are nearly all by me and the subject matter and style is pretty consistent over the forty year period that they cover. Many of them are samples from commissions that I did or didn’t get or from pieces that went wrong. I can often remember what I was listening to on the radio at the time I was making the sample - like a proper patchwork quilt all of my life is in these pieces.

The pink section cut and numbered, the yellow section cut and numbered.

I reached number 121, then made a list to see if I really knew where all the pieces came from. Lots of them are useful colour strips which I can’t date, for example numbers 21, 23, 24, 27, 29, 60 and 61 below. Above you can see sample pieces for the last public commission I installed in Liverpool Hospital almost two years ago (numbers 31 & 33 on the right) next to a piece from a dismantled 1987 panel (no. 34) and some Bournemouth pine cones from a residency I did there in 1995 (36 and 38).

The four corners all together (but not as they will be in the windows).

I’ve planned the next stage of the windows around all of these fragments. There will be black and white painted/sandblasted sections that pick up on the marks, patterns and shapes contained in them. I’ve drawn everything up full size (see window A below) as I can’t afford to have second thoughts once I start on the glass - but with apologies to my clients for the extra time that all of this takes.

Drawing for window A, showing lead lines and paintwork to come. 680 x 690 mm.

Trying to fit all the pieces of the four windows on my lightbox.

Order And Chaos

Towards Order 740 x 740 mm

I made the big, square panel above recently. It combines one of my melted pieces of slab glass with a lovely piece of old window glass. The small bubbles and wobbles in the large clear section don’t show up in the photo, likewise many of the textures in the coloured glass surrounding it. Handling a big glass panel with the hole I had cut in it was tricky, so was inserting the central piece of glass (with a lead wrapped around it) into the hole. The front is very neat, so is the back but it is copper foiled.

Left, tracing paper removed giving a better idea of the textures in the glass. Right, detail of the top section.

Left, colour selection from my scrap box. Right, on the light box, cutting the scraps to a plan.

The design followed on from the shapes of the glass scraps I chose for the border, with colours getting darker towards the edges and harmonising rather than jarring with each other. At one stage, I was going to paint in a loose style over these border pieces, but then my desire for order got the upper hand and I made a plan (below) that returned the composition to a geometric framework, with straight lines and right angles.

The painting and sandblasting plan.

As I planned the painting stage, I tested each type of glass I had used in the composition by firing it in the kiln with splashes of enamel, oxide and silver stain. The pieces looked great all together, so I spent a happy evening leading the sample pieces together (below) in a panel that returns the glass scraps to a jumble of chaos.

Towards Chaos 300 x 240 mm

An Insertion

My 1978 diary records me learning how to cut a hole in a piece of glass - ‘an insertion’. Because I have a tendency to keep everything, I found the 1978 insertion in my glass racks (above) and was surprised to find how close to the edges of the background glass I got as I smashed and nibbled my way to the perimeter of the circle.

Large piece of glass showing the bashing and removal stages during the cutting of an irregular shaped hole in it.

These days, I use a drill or order a piece of glass already drilled with holes. I have been known to sandblast through the glass to start a hole off, but decided to return to the old school method to cut a big hole for a chunky glass insertion with an irregular shape. The method goes like this - first score and open up two circuits; then cover the centre with crisscrossed lines; then start bashing from underneath the glass; then start removing squares of glass with the notches of an old fashioned glass cutter; finally remove the edge pieces with glass pliers.

Left: hole in glass, Right: piece of glass to be inserted in it.

Handling glass and finding out how much it is willing to do for you is satisfying. It was actually harder cutting small holes in thin glass to make the central panels of glass sketches that explored some ideas. Should the colour of the glass extend beyond the circular lead line (above right) or be contained by a thick lead line (below right) ? Should I combine black painting with enamels on the coloured glass strips (below) or should I introduce sandblasting in lines that ignore the leading (above) ? It’s hard to decide these things on paper, but the little glass sketch often provides the answer.

Tree patterns

Combination Trees 350 x 350 mm.

As you can probably tell, I made the panel above by leading together glass pieces from two different styles of work, both based on trees. I happened to have the two painted pieces of glass shown below in a pile on my work bench and had a feeling they would go together well. The finished panel also uses other pieces of glass from the same two series as I fitted the two patterns together in the best and most treelike way.

Tree patterns, left from the Theme and Variations series 2020, right sample from front door window 2023.

The original background tree pattern, the tops of four windows for a private house, 2018.

The coloured tree pattern is one I invented to show a woodland scene (I don’t think I stole it from anywhere) for a commission that I never got a great photo of, the one above was taken in my studio window before installing it. I then made a series of panels that were deliberately a cross between a design and a colour sample (below). Three years later I made the black and white trees pieces as samples for a front door commission where I tried out different blacks and greys as well as different methods for making the foliage patterns.

Theme and variations 2020

Some of the samples for a black and white front door commission 2023.

With my leftover pieces I made a second and opposite combination panel (below) where the coloured pieces float across the black and white sample like patches of light in a woodland scene. I’m able to chop these pieces up into complex shapes and then lead them together because it is the right type of glass - i.e. 2 to 4 mm thick whereas most of my work from the past thirty or so years has been made of glass at least 6mm thick and often toughened or laminated, as are many of my samples. These are not commissioned pieces and it’s a wonderful novelty for me not to have to get a beautifully drawn design agreed by a client before starting the making stage. The downside of this spontaneous way of working is that I don’t see mistakes (in the design) until the glass is cut, leaded and soldered so I have to pull the panel apart and change things, aiming for the sort of perfection that happens very occasionally.

The Opposite Combination 375 x 360 mm.