Sunshine After the Rain

Follow Your Heart

Working with the BBC on the Titanic Trails earlier this year to celebrate the craft of stained glass inspired me to create a collection of small hanging glass features to compliment my large scale architectural work .

I have called this collection “Sunshine After the Rain”.  This idea came about partly as a result of my own personal journey and partly as a result of discovering some fabulous crystals whilst on a trip to Vancouver.

Sourcing materials for this project has been a bit of a nightmare but I have finally got there and the resulting collection consists of three key pieces; “When it rains look for rainbows”, “When it’s dark look for stars” and “Follow your heart”.

I have used Swarovski crystals from Austria for all of these pieces. The crystals are laser cut then hand polished which gives them their incredible light refracting qualities enabling them to create fabulous “rainbow” reflections when the sun shines through them. I have one hanging in the window of my studio and in the afternoon when the sun shines it is like working inside a disco…. now I really am showing my age! Apart from looking really pretty I am convinced these crystals have “healing” properties as no matter how many times I see the light and rainbows dancing around my walls I never fail to be filled with delight and wonderment at this incredible phenomenon – must be the child in me!

I have combined these crystals with some beautiful French and German antique glass and some wonderful Spectrum glass from America. The pieces are put together using the copper foil technique perfected by Louis Comfort Tiffany at the end of the nineteenth century and are finished with a length of antiqued copper chain for hanging.

As well as hanging them in my window I have placed some of these pieces in the garden which works really well as they sparkle and glisten as they move in the breeze like beautiful garden jewels creating fabulous rainbow reflections on all the surrounding surfaces.

An old mentor of mine once described being a stained glass artist as “painting with light”. What a wonderful job this is!