In the studio where I learned, one man drew the design, another cut the glass, a third man painted it, a fourth assembled the glass in lead and did the soldering, while a fifth cemented the finished window, picked it clean and polished it.
Ever had this? So you’re tracing – tracing or strengthening: painting lines with a tracing brush – and your line itself looks good enough. But around the line you see a watermark: a halo, where water from your tracing paint seeps out. Ever had that?
57 sheets of glass delivered to the studio since January: 33 from Germany, 8 sheets from France, 10 from Poland.
And – in 4th place – 6 (just six sheets: the pity of it!) from our own dear England.
Let’s say: 16 square metres in all.
And now, two months later, only a handful of the 57 sheets remains intact:
… while most of it is cut.
Just about to start cutting glass for 4 tall lancets for a 19th century chapel. (Painting starts next month, and continues through till June.) About two-thirds of the windows we’ll cut from brightly coloured glass (vigour, energy, glow). The rest is clear glass.
And some of it is seedy.
Seedy glass – which reminded me …