South Wirral Art Society.
Demonstration on Stained Glass
Owen Mageean
10th May 2011.
Prevoiusly an art teacher and trained as a painter, Owen came to stained glass in his retirement following lessons from Bill Jones at Irby. It is quite an expensive pastime so Owen has to work on commissions, as well as for his own pleasure.
Owen ran through a bit of a potted history of glass; from the Egyptians and the Romans through to its prominance with the onset of Gothic Architecture. The Gothic Cathedral with its soring heights and butresses did not need heavy walls to support it and the walls could be filled with windows and glass. The church was rich enough to commission what was a luxury item, and used the lastest techniques from Venice and France to produce beautiful stained glass. The purpose was to flood the Cathedral with ‘Divine Light’ and to tell the biblical stories in pictures to a largely illiterate population.
Owen ran through two basic techniques; leaded windows and copper mesh. In both instances the starting point is a design.This has to be to some extent stylised/simplfied in order to make final assembly practical. From that design a pattern is made and the glass is cut with a glasscutter, to that pattern. In the case of the lead window the lead is bent to the shape of the pattern, the glass is inserted and the next section of lead fastened in place. Until the joints are soldered the frame is held in place using horse shoe nails. The copper frame is a little different as the copper ribbon is wrapped around the edges of each piece of glass before the whole ‘jigsaw’ of glass is put together and soldered in place. For the lead and the copper the solder is the same but the type of flux used is different. This task is not without its risks but the finished work rewards us with its beauty.
Thank you Owen for a most interesting evening and I hope our questions were not too much of a pane! Sorry about that one.
Peter Appleton
Secretary