What strange times we have found ourselves in…

I have named it my ‘golden time’.

Two years I have been working out of my little studio in Kendal, named dc stained glass studio. And a busy bee i have been. Wonderful commissions have gently come to my door and i have enjoyed scratching my head and thinking… how am i going to do this one then?

Twenty twenty i thought was going to be a clear path forging ahead. But I began my new year feeling slightly overwhelmed by my workload and dearly wishing for some sabbatical time. Ha. Careful what you wish for eh….

Covid 19 raised its head and we entered lock down. At first, when it all became black and white on that night of the 23rd, I guess I was a little scared. But prepared… Ample larder and the motivation to do tasks around the house kept me ‘locked in’. I ventured out eventually, to find the world a different place. Near deserted streets with folks crossing over. Shops with chevrons and cordons and screens. I quickly learned the rules of this new planet and my life adjusted to suit them.

A simple routine of existence evolved. Revolving around the sun and spinning out time as far as I could stretch it. I read. I drew. I cooked. I ran. I yoga’d… I became expert at filling the hours in my day. Reading in my sunspot became my luxury, with its view of big sky, rooftops and chimneys, welcome swifts and the Town Hall clock. And as I read more I drew more and made lots of notes. Christopher Whall in his, ‘Stained Glass Work’ book, advised… ‘when you draw…always think in glass’.  And that is what I did. Knuckling down to commissions and the like on my drawing board at home.

I have made a gentle return to my stained glass studio most days recently and it feels good to be cutting glass again. (Although I find i quite like working with the door shut and the sign reading ‘closed’!)

So, nine weeks done, I feel happy and relaxed. I feel that this golden time has been something of a gift. I do wonder what will become my new normal going forwards… Change is good, I think. And good will come from change. And a welcome grant from the local council has made my future look promising too!

Here are some of the drawings i have been working on.. My latest is for an open call to artists to submit work influenced by the events of covid19 titled ‘Dreaming through the looking glass – What Cumbrian artists did during lockdown’. Artists selected will be published in a Lake District publication… (I have my fingers crossed).

Doodles from my notebook have influenced my panel which I have named, ‘Though the think in’ glass’. The simple colour palette illustrates the black and white nature of the guidelines and rules to which we had to adhere. But I could not resist adding some yellow… this was golden time to me after all, even though it came with a warning!

Yep, spiralling sun… spinning time…social distancing and my outlook on the Town hall  (ding dong) is what this panel is all about. Tomorrow, I need to add more paint.. add a layer of silver stain to introduce even more yellow and then, put it all together!

Through the think in glass…..

And did I say ‘watch this space;?… No!! Well I should have…

Here is how the panel is developing.

The first firing left the town hall is shaded relief… Then I decided how I might apply some finer line detail…

I did two line drawings of the detail on the town hall… one confined with the shaded parameters and one free hand… I located the clock face and drew from there..

I decided to go with the freehand drawing as my tracing template as I liked the parallax error created. It sort of fit with the skewed vision we have of things at the moment… so here we go…..This is now in the kiln (Fiday), Tomorrow I will add silver stain (more yellow!)…